Glass 
Book 



Glass ZtS 

Book — 



THE CANON 



OS 



THE HOLY SCRIPTURES 



FROM THE DOUBLE POINT OF VIEW 



OF SCIENCE AND OF FAITH. 



BY 

L. GAUSSEN, D.D. 

• 1 



LONDON : 
JAMES NISBET AND CO, 21 BERNERS STREET. 



M.DCCC.LXII. 




EDINBURGH: 
PRINTED BV BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY, 
PAUL'S WORK. 



Ex 'vrae 
We&tern Ont trnfv. Libra** 
Feb- 25- 3.938 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



The following translation from the French has been carefully 
revised by the learned and venerable Author ; and most of the 
quotations from the Fathers of the Church and ecclesiastical 
writers have again been verified by a comparison with the 
original works. 



PREFACE. 



In publishing this work, I am actuated by the threefold considera- 
tion — of the real importance of the subject, of its being accessible 
to every class of readers, and of the very luminous aspect it pre- 
sents when closely studied. It is only obscure at a distance ; and 
if to some persons it seems beset with difficulty and uncertainty, 
it is only owing to their imperfect knowledge, or bad method of 
studying it. I was not aware that it was so intelligible till I had 
examined it with great attention. 

For this reason I thought it my duty, in consequence of the 
very numerous and severe attacks made on the certainty of the 
canon, to treat it at large for the use of our theological students ; 
and since that I have felt it desirable to introduce it to the know- 
ledge of our churches. 

With this view I have endeavoured to write a book that will 
be sufficiently intelligible to every serious reader ; and it has been 
my desire, that all unlettered Christians who may have been dis- 
turbed by these attacks of modern infidelity, may feel themselves, 
on reading it, confirmed in their faith. 

It is impossible to treat such a subject usefully, — at least from 
an historical point of view, — without adducing numerous testi- 
monies from the fathers, with quotations from their writings, both 
Greek and Latin. But I have made it a rule always to translate 
those passages, and never to appeal to any of the ancient doctors, 



vi 



PEEFACE. 



either of the West or East, without giving some brief notice of 
his character, his principal writings, and his place in history. 

I publish these volumes as a complement of that which I 
brought out, almost twenty years ago, on the inspiration of the 
Scriptures. That work would have been incomplete unless ac- 
companied by a treatise on the canon ; for its readers, even those 
who were most thoroughly convinced, might always object, after 
having heard me prove by all Scripture that all Scripture was 
divinely inspired, that it still ' remained to be proved whether 
Daniel, or Esther, or Canticles, or any other book of the Old 
Testament, belonged to this inspired Scripture — whether the 
Epistle of Jude, or that of James, or the Second Epistle of Peter, 
or the Second and Third of John, or any other book commonly 
included in the New Testament, legitimately formed a part of it — 
or whether there was sufficient certainty that all the apocryphal 
books ought to be absolutely excluded. 

As long as these questions are not clearly solved, our privilege 
of possessing an inspired Bible remains illusory, or is at least 
compromised ; we have a feeling of insecurity in its use ; we 
cannot clearly discern all its pages ; a depressing cloud of un- 
certainty floats over our heads between heaven and earth ; and 
though carrying in our hands a volume denominated the Scrip- 
tures, we proceed with tottering steps. 

But, blessed be God ! my Christian brethren, this is not your 
position ; the God of the holy prophets has prepared better things 
for His believing people. 

Your proofs are abundant and, as we are about to shew, you 
have also divine guarantees. If your confidence in those Scrip- 
tures, which constitute the rule and joy of your faith, rests, on 
one side, on the most solid human reasons, on the other, it is 
invited to support itself by the strongest divine reasons. On the 
one hand, there are facts, documents, monuments, historical 
testimonies — testimonies clear, numerous, certain, and sufficient- 
such as no human composition under heaven ever possessed. On 
the other hand, you have something still more simple and abso- 



PEEFACE. 



Vii 



lute ; your confidence has for its foundation the firmest principles 
of faith — an infallible guarantee, — the constant judgment of saints 
and prophets, the invariable procedure of God in all His revela- 
tions during fourteen centuries, and the example of Jesus Christ 
Himself — in a word, the wisdom of God — the harmony, the con- 
stancy, and the faithfulness of His ways. 

I propose, then, to demonstrate, by arguments purely historical, 
in the First Part, to all unbelievers, the authenticity of all the 
scriptures of the New Testament, as might be done, if the ques- 
tion concerned only purely a human work. 

Besides this, I propose, with the Lord's assistance, to establish 
in the Second Part, and to believers only, the canonicity of all the 
scriptures of both Testaments, as may be done most satisfactorily 
for every man who is already convinced that inspired books exist, 
and that God, having revealed Himself from heaven by the 
prophets at sundry times, and in divers manners, for 1400 years, 
has in these last days spoken to us, in the person of His Son, by 
His apostles and evangelists. 

These two classes of proof have each their distinct place and 
function ; and while I think that we are under great obligations 
to all those defenders of the canon who have treated the subject 
with a view to unbelievers, for the historic proofs they have col- 
lected in such abundance, I am still deeply convinced that, in 
confining themselves to this office, they have ignored their pri- 
vileges, and proceeded in part on a wrong track, losing sight of 
the example of the Eedeemer, forgetting the lessons taught by 
past ages, and thus neglecting the most important and interesting 
part of their vocation. 

To give a clearer idea of the character and design of this work, 
I would beg leave to state the reason that induced me to publish 
it. 

I had first of all written, in 1851 and 1852, for the use of our 
evangelical School of Theology, the second part of this work, and 
it was not till a later period, in 1853 and 1854, that I- conceived 
the design of adding what is now the first. 



viii 



PEEFACE. 



When we founded in Geneva, twenty-nine years ago, a School 
of Theology, for the purpose of elevating the long-depressed banner 
of the Saviour's divinity, and the great doctrines connected with 
it, in the Church of our fathers, I charged myself with the doc- 
trinal instruction. But, in performing my task, I felt no need for 
many years of discussing to any extent either the canonicity or 
divine inspiration of the Scriptures. 

We attended to what was most urgent, and those truths had 
not then been publicly called in question by any person in our 
immediate vicinity. As to myself, in my early years, and during 
my studies, though very anxious to settle my faith on a satisfactory 
basis, I never experienced any wavering on these two points. 
Since Jesus Christ, my Lord and my God, " created all things in 
heaven and earth, and by him all things subsist," (Col. i. 16,) I 
said to myself, how could I doubt that He has taken care of His 
own revelations, whether in giving them at first, or in their sub- 
sequent preservation and transmission ? Our only business was to 
study them for the purpose of regulating each one's faith, and 
conscience, and life. Besides, we invited to our school none but 
young men who had already owned the authority of the Scrip- 
tures, and who were esteemed truly pious, as having experienced in 
their souls something of " the good word of God and the powers 
of the world to come/' 

We directed our attention in the first place, as I have said, to 
what was most urgent ; we were eager to reach those vital truths, 
on the reception of which the stability of a church depends, and 
without which it falls. 

Mere logical arrangement would have led us to give every 
question its exact place in a course of theology ; but it was 
evident that the greatest attention should be given to those 
doctrines which had been long disregarded, and too often assailed, 
which convince men of sin, lead to the feet of Jesus, and keep 
them there, — I mean, the divinity of the Son of man and His 
everlasting priesthood, the fall of humanity and its entire ruin, 
the election of believers from all eternity, their redemption by 



PEEFACE. 



ix 



the expiation of the cross, their regeneration by the Spirit of God, 
their complete justification by faith alone, and, lastly, their resur- 
rection from the dust to a life of glory and immortality. 

But if these evangelical doctrines belong to all times alike, and 
their exposition is always in season, if the Church of God cannot 
dispense with them even for a day, the case is different with 
refutations and apologies. 

These latter are not necessary, nor even beneficial, excepting at 
a time when the want of them is felt. Till that moment arrives, 
they may do our minds more harm than good, like remedies 
for bodily disorders administered before the malady exists. They 
suggest doubts that would never have been suspected ; they raise 
unknown difficulties and objections of foreign origin, which, but 
for them, would never have entered our thoughts. For a hunting 
party to beat about a district for wild boars would be of no use 
unless it was ravaged by them ; it would be injurious if there 
were none in the country ; and it would be foolish and criminal 
if, for the sake of the sport, the animals were imported from a 
foreign land. "Who can estimate, for example, all the mischief 
that has been often done in our churches by the young translators 
of those German works which have exhibited systems of scepti- 
cism, negation, and heresy, to which previously we had been total 
strangers, and which we have often seen propagated here long 
after they had ceased to be spoken of in the country of their 
birth. 

It has been justly remarked of apologetics, that it must be 
remodelled every thirty years, because its wants change from one 
generation to another ; the apologetics of to-day is no longer that 
which our fathers required, nor is it that which will meet the 
wants of our children. 

In reference to the canonicity and divine inspiration of the 
Scriptures, I have arrived at the conclusion that it is highly 
important to discuss these subjects henceforward with greater 
fulness. The number of our opponents, the perfectly novel 
tactics of their infidelity, and the spirit of their attacks on the 



X 



PEEFACE. 



written Word, make this a duty on our part, almost a necessity. 
In former times this need was not felt among us, as may be easily 
inferred from the very small space allotted to these questions by 
our best theological writers — Calvin, Francis Turretine, Pictet, 
and Stapfer, in their largest and most accredited treatises. But 
in the present day a great change has come over us, and we 
are condemned to see a totally novel warfare, no longer carried 
on from without against the Scriptures, but from within, and 
by men who profess to be, like ourselves, representatives of Chris- 
tianity. 

This kind of warfare is very pernicious ; our fathers were not 
acquainted with it, or, at least, it never assailed them, excepting 
by short skirmishes, or by isolated attacks on one or other of our 
sacred books. In the present day the enemy is drawn up in 
battle-array against the whole of the Scriptures. Since the first 
third of the nineteenth century, we have seen almost all the 
opponents of the living truth vie with each other in efforts, not 
only, as heretofore, against this or the other vital doctrine taught 
in the Holy Scriptures, but against the depository of them all. 
For a time they leave undisturbed the distinctive teachings of 
the written Word as beneath their notice, in order to attack the 
volume in which God has given them to us. It is no longer the 
contents that are put upon their trial ; of these our opponents 
think they can easily get rid, if they succeed in accomplishing 
the task of discrediting and demolishing the Scriptures. Their 
aim is directed against the depository, the entire volume, of revela- 
tion. Nothing is neglected which may render it suspected, uncer- 
tain, contradictory, mean, and tainted with error ; — in a word, 
contemptible as a whole and in all its parts. They will deny its 
authority, its inspiration, its integrity ; they will deny the canon- 
icity of each book ; — in short, they will deny its authenticity, its 
veracity, its good sense, and even its morality ! 

But the most novel feature of this warfare, the most ill-omened, 
the most threatening in its immediate effect on our churches, and 
one which never appeared but in the second and third centuries, 



PREFACE. 



is that this crusade against the Scriptures is carried on in the 
name of a certain kind of Christianity. 

During thirty-three centuries, was a man of God ever seen 
decrying the Scriptures of God, a pious Israelite decrying the 
Old Testament, or a Christian decrying the books of the men (the 
apostles and prophets) who wrote the New Testament ? No ; this 
was never seen ! 

" The righteous man," in all ages, has always distinguished 
himself from the rest of mankind by his reverence for the Sacred 
Volume ; and a true Christian, from the moment of his new 
birth, has always thirsted for it, as an infant for its mother's milk, 
to sustain and strengthen him. It is an apostolic injunction, " As 
new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word, that ye may 
grow thereby," (1 Pet. ii. 2.) 

" The righteous man," David said twenty-nine centuries ago, 
n takes his delight in this holy law, and he meditates in it day 
and night," (Ps. i. 2.) By this sign he is recognised in the present 
day ; by this sign he has been recognised in all ages of the world. 
" how I love Thy law ! it is my meditation all the day \* " it is 
sweeter than honey to my mouth." " I love Thy commandments 
above gold ; " " the entrance of Thy word giveth light ; it maketh 
wise the simple." " God has magnified his word above all his 
name/' 1 

But in the present day, by whom is this warfare against the 
Scriptures carried on ? " Behold, heaven and earth, and be as- 
tonished !" 

In former ages, and for 1600 years, such attacks proceeded only 
from the most inveterate enemies of the Christian name. The 
present times remind us of the disastrous days of those ancient 
Gnostics who caused such grief to the faithful ministers of the 
second century. In our day these attacks come from persons 
whom men of the world might suppose to belong to our own 
ranks, — persons who call themselves members of a Protestant 
church, and are in many instances ministers of the Word. They 

1 Ps. cxix. 97, 103, 127, 130, cxxxviii. 2. 



xii 



PEEFACE. 



profess to speak in the name of science, and to attack our Scrip- 
tures only to defend the interests of a Christ whom they have 
made, and of divine truth shaped in accordance with their own 
conceptions. 

And yet, what do we know in religion unless by means of the 
Bible, and what do they themselves know ? Let one of our oppon- 
ents point out a truth, — yes ! only a single truth relating to God 
the Father, or to His only Son, to the eternal Spirit, to the resur- 
rection of the dead, to the future world, to the last judgment, to 
heaven or hell or immortality, — yes ! I say a single truth which 
their philosophy has gained, or which has been discovered in 
their school independently of the oracles of God. But men of 
this stamp pervert all the principles of religion, as Calvin remarks, 
"by quitting the Scriptures to go in chase of their own fancies." 1 

<c God hath made foolish the wisdom of this world," says St 
Paul ; " for after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom 
knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to 
save them that believe," (1 Cor. i. 19-21.) 

It is this book of "the preaching" which alone has changed 
the face of the world. It alone causes a soul to pass from death 
into life. It alone, in these latter days, has brought more than 
one tribe of cannibals out of darkness into light. Let them shew 
us any other volume — from the times of Confucius, Plato, or 
Aristotle, to those of Mohammed, (apart from his sword,) Voltaire, 
Bayle, Bousseau, Hegel, or Cousin — which has ever, in any coun- 
try, reclaimed, by its science, its morals, or its philosophy, a vil- 
lage, only a single village, from idolatry to the service of God. 

Is it not written, " Where is the wise ? where is the scribe ? 
where is the disputer of this world ? (TIov aofyos ; ttov ypajm- 
ficLTevs ;) " Where are they, and what have they done ? This is 
the interrogation of the apostle. 2 

The warfare carried on in our days against the Scriptures is as 
strange as it is pernicious, and the friends of God ought to be 

1 Institution Chretienne, torn, i., p. 34. Paris, 1859. 

2 1 Cor. i. 19,20. 



PEEFACE. 



xiii 



roused to exert themselves to the utmost to counteract its per- 
nicious effects. 

Pernicious ! Alas ! it has already been too much so for those 
who have engaged in it. None can be arrested on this dangerous 
path, unless by the extraordinary grace of God; for the Holy 
Word, when thus despised, cannot transmit a ray of light to their 
souls ; on the contrary, the contempt they entertain for it gives 
birth to fresh contempt, and the night preferred to the light be- 
comes more intensely dark. 

" Timothy," says St Paul, " keep that which is committed to 
thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of 
science falsely so called : which some professing, have erred con- 
cerning the faith," (1 Tim. vi. 20, 21.) " These profane and vain 
babblings," says he again, " will increase unto more ungodliness," 
(2 Tim. ii 16.) Here is the danger, the awful danger of this 
warfare for those who engage in it ! " Their word will eat, as 
doth a canker." " They ivax worse and worse," Paul adds, " (wpo- 
Ko^rovaiv iirl to ^eipov,)" "misleading and misled," — misleading 
souls out of the path of immortality, after having been first misled 
themselves ; for such is the twofold woe that attends the fatal 
declivity of their course, " misleading and misled, (yfkavcovTes kclI 

7r\aVCO/UL€V0L ! )" 

But if it is a just cause for sorrow to see misled men avow 
themselves unhesitatingly the detractors of that Bible on which 
alone the whole Church is founded, and by which alone Chris- 
tianity subsists, there is in this warfare something still more dis- 
tressing — namely, the mischief it effects among our people in 
general, and which may be effected in our churches, even among 
our most pious communities. 

As to our people in general, numberless facts speak too loudly. 
We are reminded by them of Paul's words respecting the Israelites 
in the wilderness, who " could not enter into God's rest because 
of their unbelief." And whence this unbelief ? Because, as he 
says, " the word preached to them did not profit." And why did 
it not profit? Because "it was not mixed with faith in them 



xiv PKEFACE. 

that heard it." But how, I ask — how can the word preached to 
our Protestant populations be mixed with faith in minds to 
whom it will appear suspicious and contemptible, in consequence 
of the disparaging terms applied to the oracles of God, and the 
flat contradictions given to their contents ? What ! (it will be 
said to them,) do you believe that this collection of scriptures 
which is offered you is indeed from God? Do you not know 
that the books of which it consists are of an uncertain number ? — 
that some are apocryphal, some are doubtful, some are absolute 
forgeries ? And again, of those which may be authentic, do you 
imagine that every part is inspired ? Contradictions are palpable 
in them, errors abound, and the prejudices of the age may be 
detected page after page ! . . . . 

How, I ask, can the word be " mixed with faith " among the 
persons who are, unhappily, exposed to these suggestions of the 
tempter, and filled by him with prejudices and feelings of 
contempt against the Scriptures ? No ! these " profane and 
vain babblings/' as the apostle says, " overthrow the faith" of 
many ; or, rather, they prevent its birth ; they render it impos- 
sible ! 

Will it be said that the Scripture cannot be destitute of power ? 
Is it not powerful, by its divine energy, "to cast down in the 
human heart every high thing that exalteth itself against the 
knowledge of God?" Is it not " a hammer breaking the rock in 
pieces?" Is it not "a two-edged sword, piercing to the dividing 
asunder the joints and marrow?" Yes; it is all this; but only 
for those who hear it, and who expect to gain something from it. 
And how can it be all this for those who despise it, and do not 
believe that it comes from God ? Without reverence, there can 
be no attention ; and without attention, no means of being 
touched ; and without all this, there can be no faith, no com- 
munion possible with God, no efficacy in the blood of the cross, no 
salvation, no life. 

And yet, as I have said, this is not all. The mischief will not 
be confined to those men of the world whom we have desired to 



PEEFACE. 



XV 



conduct to Jesus Christ, but whose prejudices keep them at a 
distance from Him. It will be felt in our churches, and among 
the most pious of our members. 

It may be thought, perhaps, that these attacks will entail little 
danger on believers, who, nourished by the Scriptures, know by 
experience what they are, and what they can do. But we must 
not hope that it will be always so. Even for such persons, this 
warfare is not without its perils. Oftentimes it- will lower the 
standard of piety and faith, by lowering in their minds the 
majesty of the Scriptures ; for it can never be without some de- 
teriorating effect for even those who are most confirmed in the 
faith to hear repeated depreciating suggestions against one arid 
another of our sacred books, if these suggestions are not combated 
as often as they are brought forward. However ill-founded they 
may be, if repeated without being put down, they exert an ener- 
vating influence on the mind, even when, without accepting them, 
and yet, without having learnt how to refute them, the unfortunate 
habit has been acquired of letting them pass without decided 
opposition. Hence persons are led to believe that, while reject- 
ing them themselves, other Christians may admit them without 
damaging their Christianity. These charges and obscurities re- 
specting the canon of the Scriptures often circulated in the neigh- 
bourhood of our churches without being noticed by our sentinels, 
at last settle over them in the atmosphere like a pestilential 
miasma, which even the healthiest frames cannot pass through 
and inhale without some injury. Perhaps, at last, tired of resist- 
ance, and with defective information, they will come to regard 
these injurious reports as the distant and mysterious echoes of an 
unknown and superior science, which it would be rash to think of 
combating, or of attempting to refute. 

And hence what baneful consequences ! The weakening of 
faith ; diminished taste for the study of the Scriptures ; less thirst 
for their use ; less humble submission to regulate the life by 
them ; less labour to fathom them, and to explore their depths ; 
less jealousy for purity of doctrine ; for, as Calvin has said, " We 



xvi 



PREFACE. 



cannot have firm faith in a doctrine till we are persuaded, without 
any mixture of doubt, that God is its author." 

It was in the beginning of the year 1850 that a sudden opposi- 
tion against the authority and authenticity of the Scriptures first 
broke out at Geneva, in our own theological school, among half a 
score of Belgian, French, and Canadian students. 

The cause of it was for us as painful as it was unexpected, 
and the subsequent disturbance occasioned by it in the churches 
was also very serious. But the school had passed through such 
storms more than once; it had combated them by the divine 
Word ; and experience not less than faith had taught us to confide 
during the tempest in the faithfulness of the Most High, who 
made it serve in the final issue for the confirmation of the truth. 
When the calm was restored, we were able to acknowledge with 
gratitude that the Lord had permitted these days of trouble only 
to purify an institution consecrated to His service, to lead us to 
study more closely the foundations of our faith, and to confirm on 
some essential points the students and the professors, the pastors 
and their flocks. 

The declarations of these young men were of such a nature that 
we should have felt it our duty on any other occasion to have 
dismissed them immediately from onr institution. We had ad- 
mitted them only to prepare them for preaching the Word of 
life, and if henceforth they rejected that Word — its inspiration, 
its authenticity, its authority — what was there in common between 
them and ourselves ? 

But we took a different view. We believed that we owed them 
some reparation, because the evil done to themselves had taken 
place when under our care, and we conceived that, under these 
circumstances, we ought not to send any of them away till we had 
taken pains by fresh efforts to bring them back, if possible, to 
own the authority of the Scriptures. 

We took our part in this important task, and from this mo- 
ment, I mean, from the beginning of the year 1850, I made it 
my study to point out to them the true path of faith in relation 
to the canon, in a series of propositions. 



PEEFACE. 



xvii 



These propositions established the doctrine of the canon by 
God's method of proceeding during all the ages of the Old Testa- 
ment, by the example of Jesus Christ, and by the Divine declara- 
tions ; then they confirmed the meaning of these declarations by 
a twofold collection of numerous, indisputable facts, extending 
through many ages. This performance was, moreover, accom- 
panied by a history of the canon, and more particularly of the 
controverted books. The second part of this work contains the 
series of these first propositions, expanded in some parts, and in 
others compressed. 

After finishing my first course, and on the point of resuming 
the series of my propositions for the use of a fresh class of young 
theologians, particularly those that demonstrate the dogma of the 
canon a posteriori, I was struck with the evidence of the facts 
which constitute this proof — historical facts, exceptional, astonish- 
ing, and inexplicable, apart from a Divine intervention, — facts, 
moreover, very rarely appealed to or known. I believed their 
publication would be useful. 

I have since learned, from the language of our opponents, that, 
before presenting to the world our arguments of faith, it would be 
indispensable, in order to render the reader attentive and docile, 
to make a succinct statement of the facts and testimonies relating 
to the history of the canon, to place before him the objections of 
opponents, in order to consider them more closely, and to place 
him in a position for consulting by himself the most important 
remains of patristic literature. I also conceived that it would be 
desirable to make it evident that, judging of the canon only by 
the ordinary rules which in the republic of letters decide the 
authenticity of a book, the unanimity of the Churches through- 
out the world has given to our Sacred Volume, as far as regards 
its twenty-two homologoumena, a certainty unparalleled in the 
field of ancient literature. 

To gain the reader's attention to our reasons of faith, I have 
thought it necessary that, in hearing them, it should never enter 
his thoughts that we proposed them, because we dared not to look 

b 



xviii 



PEEFACE. 



in the face the facts of history and the objections of science. On 
the contrary, we have gathered from these facts new reasons for 
belief, — reasons clear, manifold, and invincible. 

This work would probably have appeared much sooner, had 
not the hand of God laid me on a bed of suffering for two years 
in succession by two very serious accidents, which rendered me 
for a long time almost incapable of continuous application. 

I commend to the blessing of God, through Jesus Christ, a task 
out of the usual course of my studies, but undertaken for the sole 
object of serving Him. 

May 5, 1862. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

INTRODUCTORY, (Propp. 1-5,) ...... 1 



PAET FIEST. 
CANONICITY OF ALL THE BOOKS OP THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

BOOK I. 
CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

Definitions of the Canon, (Propp. 6-7,) .... 5 

CHAPTER II. 

The Idea of a New Testament Canon as early as the Days of the 

Apostles, (Propp. 8-10,) , . 6 

CHAPTER IIL 

The Church, from the Commencement, regarded the Collection of 

Scriptures as a harmonic whole, (Propp. 11-13,) . . 11 



CHAPTER IV. 

First Formation of the Canon, (Propp. 14-23,) ... 13 



XX 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER V. 

PAGE 

Oral Preaching was of necessity by some years anterior to Written 

Preaching, or the Gift of New Scriptures, (Prop. 24,) . . 17 

CHAPTER VI. 

Historical Division of the Canon into Three distinct Parts, (Propp. 

25-29,) 18 

CHAPTER VII. 

This Threefold Division of the Canon is, moreover, warranted by 

the most authentic Documents of the Church, (Prop. 30,) . 20 

Section First.— Three Ante-Nicene Catalogues, (Prop. 31,) 20 
Section Second. — Peshito Catalogue, (Propp. 32-36,) . 21 
Section Third. — Origen's Catalogue, (Propp. 37-42,) . 25 
Section Fourth. — The Catalogue of Eusebius, (Propp. 

43-50,) . . . . . .31 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Of the Council of Nice and its Results, (Prop. 51,) ... 42 

Section First. — The Council made no Decree on the 

Canon, (Propp. 52, 53,) .... 43 

Section Second. — From the Date of the Council all dis- 
agreement regarding the Controverted Books ceased 
in all the Churches in Christendom, (Prop. 54,) . 45 



CHAPTER IX. 

The Eleven Authentic Catalogues of the Fourth Century, (Prop. 

55,) 47 

Section First. — Unanimity of all the Catalogues as to 
the First Canon, the Second Canon, and the Epistle 
to the Hebrews, (Prop. 56,) . " . . . 47 

Section Second. — Catalogues of the Fathers and Cata- 
logues of the Councils, (Prop. 57,) ... 47 



CHAPTER X. 

The Nine Catalogues of the Fourth Century given by the Fathers, 48 

Section First. — Only Three of them omit the Apoca- 
lypse, (Propp. 58-63,) ..... 48 



CONTENTS. 



xxi 



PAGE 

Section Second. — All the other Six Catalogues of the 
Fathers of the Fourth Century are entirely in accord- 
ance with the Canon of the Churches, (Propp. 64-77,) 54 

CHAPTER XI. 

Some other Catalogues, alleged to be of the Fourth Century, and 
agreeing with our Canon, are Apocryphal or spurious, (Prop. 
78,) . . ... . . . 67 

Section First. — Catalogue of Innocent I., (Propp. 79, 80,) 67 
Section Second. — Catalogue of Damasus, (Prop. 81,) . 69 
Section Third. — Catalogue of Amphilochius, (Prop. 82,) 70 

CHAPTER XII. 

The Two Catalogues drawn up by Councils of the Fourth Century, 71 

Section First. — Nature of their Testimony, (Propp. 83-86,) 71 
Section Second. — Council of Laodicea, (Propp. 87-90,) . 73 
Section Third, — The Council of Carthage, (Propp. 91-93,) 79 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Summary of all the Testimonies of the Fourth Century, (Prop. 94,) 82 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Vulgar Prejudices which a glance at these Facts ought to have 

removed, (Propp. 95-102,) . . . 83 

CHAPTER XV. 

Inference from all the Testimonies of the First Four Centuries, 

(Propp. 103-106,) ...... 90 



BOOK II. 

Of the First Canon — Historical Basis of its Authenticity, (Propp. 

107, 108,) 93 

CHAPTER I. 

First Great Historical Fact — The complete and unvarying Unani- 
mity of the Churches, (Propp. 109-1 12,) ... 95 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER II. 

PAGE 

The Authenticity of the Twenty-two Homologoumena of the New 
Testament is established by incomparably stronger evidence 
than what exists in favour of the Authenticity of any other 
Book of Antiquity whatever, (Propp. 113-125,) . . 99 

CHAPTER III. 

Three causes, especially, produced this Providential Unanimity, . 107 

Section First. — The long career of the Apostles, (Propp. 

126-134,) 107 

Section Second. — The immense number of Churches at 

the death of the Apostles, (Propp. 135-144,) . 115 

Section Third. — Anagnosis, (Propp. 145-163,) . . 123 

CHAPTER IV. 

The various Monuments of the Canon, . . . . 

Section First. — Four Classes of Monuments, (Prop. 164,) 
Section Second. — The field of research, (Propp. 165-168,) 
Section Third. — The actors and witnesses of the Two 
First Centuries of the Church presented in a Tabular 
Form, (Prop. 169,) 

CHAPTER V. 

The Testimony of the Fathers of the Second Half of the Second 



Century, ....... 148 

Section First. — The united Testimonies of Irenseus, 

Clement, and Tertullian, (Propp. 170-172,) . . 148 
Section Second. — Seven characteristics of their Testi- 
mony, (Prop. 173,) . . . . .151 

Section Third.— Tertullian, (Propp. 174-176,) . . 154 
Section Fourth. — Clement of Alexandria, (Propp. 177— 

179,) 157 

Section Fifth. — Irenaeus, (Propp. 180-185,) . . 163 
Section Sixth. — Other contemporary Fathers, (Propp. 

186,187,) . . . . . .176 

Section Seventh.— The result of all their Testimonies, 

(Propp. 188-192,) . . . . 179 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Fragment called Muratori's, (Propp. 193-198,) . . .186 



136 

136 
137 

140 



CONTENTS, 



xxiii 



CHAPTER VII. 

PAGE 

The Testimony of the First Half of the Second Century, (Prop. 199,) 191 

Section First.— Justin Martyr, (Propp. 200-206,) . 191 

Section Second. — Objections against the Testimony of 

Justin Martyr, (Propp. 207, 208,) . . . 205 
Section Third. — Other Historical Monuments of the 
Canon in the First Half of the Second Century, 
(Propp. 209, 210,) 208 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The Testimony of Pagan Unbelievers in the Second Century, , 211 

Section First. — Their Writings, (Prop. 211,) . . 211 

Section Second. — Testimony of Celsus, (Propp. 212-215,) 212 

Section Third. — Force of this Testimony, (Prop. 216,) . 216 



CHAPTER IX. 

The Testimony of Heretics in the First Half of the Second Century, 219 

Section First. — The character of this Testimony, (Propp. 

217-220,) . . . • . . .219 

Section Second.— Marcion, (Propp. 221-225,) . . 223 
Section Third.— Tatian, (Prop. 226,) . . .230 
Section Fourth. — Valentine and the Valentinians, (Propp. 

227-229,) . 232 

Section Fifth. — Heracleon and Ptolemy, (Propp. 230, 

231,) 235 

Section Sixth. — Basilides and his son Isidore, (Propp. 

232-235,) 237 



CHAPTER X. 

The Apostolic Fathers, , 240 

Section First. — Their Small Number and their Value, 

(Propp. 236-239,) 240 

Section Second. — The Epistle to Diognetus, (Propp. 240, 

241,) .245 

Section Third. — The Circular Epistle of the Church of 

Smyrna, (Prop. 242,) ..... 248 
Section Fourth. — The Epistle of Polycarp, (Propp. 243- 

247,) . . . . . .249 



xxiv 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Section Fifth. — Ignatius, his Martyrdom and Letters, 

(Propp. 248-253,) ..... 254 

Section Sixth —The Epistle of Clement of Borne to the 

Corinthians, (Propp. 254-262,) . . .257 

Section Seventh. — Inference from the Testimony of the 

Apostolic Fathers, (Prop. 263,) , . .277 



CHAPTER XI. 

The later Writings of the New Testament attest the existence of 

a Canon already begun, (Propp. 264-267,) . . . 279 



BOOK III 

The Second-First Canon, (Prop. 268,) . . . . 283 



CHAPTER L 

The Apocalypse, ....... 284 

Section First.— Its First Reception, (Propp. 269-272,) . 284 
Section Second. — The Date of the Apocalypse, (Propp. 

273,274,) . . . . .287 

Section Third. — The Apocalypse in the First Century, 

(Prop. 275,) ... . . . 290 

Section Fourth. — Testimonies in the First Half of the 

Second Century, (Propp. 276-279,) . . .291 
Section Fifth. — Testimonies in the Second Half of the 

same Century, (Prop. 280,) . . . .295 

Section Sixth. — The First Half of the Third Century, 

(Propp. 281-283,) 298 

Section Seventh. — The Second Half of the Third Cen- 
tury, (Propp. 284, 285,) . . . .303 
Section Eighth. — Witnesses in the Fourth Century, 

(Propp. 286-289,) 304 

Section Ninth.— Fifth Century, (Prop. 290,) , . 308 

CHAPTER II. 

The Epistle to the Hebrews, ..... 309 

Section First. — Its character and history, (Propp. 291- 

295,) . . . . . . .309 



CONTENTS. 


XXV 


CIrnTTAV O T? ^ ^\ -\ t t-\ TViq T'oofi "mriYiiPCi r*4- "fVio T^ocs'f in -fVio 

OiiidliUJN OHjOUJN 1/.— X U.C 1 to OlillUilloo Ul l/ilo Hiaou 111 Lllc 


PAGE 


Fourth Centurv (TroDn 296-299 


311 


£«\Tr , r i T , Tr>"\T r T 1 TTT'R"n _T\7^ifn pcapa nf "flna T^actf in flip r PHiw1 
UJIiLi J.1WIN J. HI It 17. VV lUlloooCo Ul bile J-Jdou 111 ullt/ J. 1111 U. 




Opnturv (Pron 300 \ 


313 


S'pr»T'Tr>xr T^att'rt'TT TV"if n pospq nf +Vip TTfldf. in t.lnp Sprrmri 

KJUjOIIWIN J_ UUxtJLJcL. VV luiiCOcCo Ul UI1C J-ictou 111 ullc OCUUllLl 




v^enuury, ^irropp. oui-ou^j . . > ■ 


oxo 


S5f(TTTO'N' Ftttttt TVitnpssps of thp Fast, in thp First Opn- 




t.nrv fPrnrvn ^04- SOS ^ 

kill Yy ^1 IU|JjJ. fJVTIj OV/UjJ • f • • 


317 


kjili'jllUii rOlAlIl, J_ CouilllUlllt'io KJX. vllC u CwUj ^XHJ^-'j-'* rJ \J\J 




3] 1 ^ 

OXX,) ....... 


318 


Section Seventh.— Recapitulation of these Testimonies, 




(Prop. 312,) ...... 


321 


Section Eighth. — The Pauline authorship of this Epistle, 




(Propp. 313-315,) ..... 


323 


Section Ninth.— Objections, (Propp. 316-320,) . 


329 



BOOK IV. 

The Second Canon ; or, The Five Antilegomena, . . 335 



CHAPTER L 

General Facts, (Propp. 321-324,) ..... 335 



CHAPTER IL 

The Epistle of James, ...... 338 

Section First.— Its Importance, (Propp. 325, 326,) . 338 
Section Second. — Its Immediate Reception by that Por- 
tion of the Church to which it was first addressed, 
(Propp. 327, 328,) . . . . .340 

Section Third.— Its Date, (Prop. 329,) . . .341 
Section Fourth. — Causes of the Hesitation of some 

Churches, (Prop. 330,) . . . . 342 

Section Fifth.— Witnesses, (Propp. 331-335,) < . 343 
Section Sixth. — Its Excellence, (Prop. 336,) . . 346 

Section Seventh — Which James is its Author ? (Propp. 

337-340,) 346 



xxvi 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER III, 

PAGE 

The Second Epistle of Peter, 353 

Section First.— The study which it claims, (Prop. 341,) 353 
Section Second. — The Epistle affirms that it was written 

by Peter, (Prop. 342,) 354 

Section Third. — The majestic character of this Epistle 

strongly confirms this testimony, (Propp. 343, 344,) . 355 
Section Fourth. — The obstacles to its acceptance, (Prop. 

345,) . . ... ... . 358 

Section Fifth.— Its Style, (Prop. 346,) . . .358 
Section Sixth.— Its History, (Prop. 347,) . . . 359 
Section Seventh, — The definitive assent of all the Chris- 
tian Churches was late, (Prop. 348,) . . . 361 
Section Eighth. — The successive assent has been slow, 

(Propp. 349-353,) ..... 362 

Section Ninth. — The assent on the appearance of the 
Book was immediate among a part of the Churches, 
(Propp. 354-359,) . . . .368 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Two Shorter Epistles of John, (Prop. 360-363), . . 372 



CHAPTER V. 

The Epistle of Jude, ....... 375 

Section First.— (Prop. 364,) . . , . 375 
Section Second. — The Author of the Epistle, (Propp. 

365-367,) 375 

Section Third.— Its Date, (Propp. 368, 369,) . . 376 
Section Fourth. — Objections against this Epistle, (Propp. 

370-372,) . . .... 379 

Section Fifth. — Alleged citations of Apocryphal Books, 

(Propp. 373-380,) . . . . .380 

Section Sixth. — Testimonies of the Second Century, 

(Propp. 381-384,) 390 ^ 

Section Seventh. — Testimonies of the Third Century, 

(Prop. 385,) 392 

Section Eighth. — Testimonies of the Fourth Century, 

(Prop. 386,) 393 



CHAPTER VI. 

General considerations on the Antilegomena, (Propp. 387-400,) 



395 



CONTENTS. XXV 11 



PAET SECOND, 
THE METHOD OF EAITH. 
Introductory, (Propp. 401-403,) . . . . .411 



CHAPTER II. 
Objections to the Method of Science, (Prop. 410,) . 

Section First. — Its Novelty, (Prop. 411,) . 
Section Second. — Its Inaccessibility, (Prop. 412,) 
Section Third. — Its Want of Spirituality, (Prop. 413,) 
Section Fourth. — Its Dangers, (Propp. 414, 415,) 



PAGE 



BOOK I. 

The Two Methods open for the Knowledge of the Canon, (Prop. 

404,) 413 



CHAPTER I. 

Comparison of the Two Methods, (Propp. 405-409,) . . 414 



418 

418 
419 
419 
419 



CHAPTER III. 

The advantages of the Method of Faith, (Propp. 416, 417,) . . 424 

CHAPTER IV. 



The true use of Science in relation to the Canon, (Propp. 418, 

419,) . 426 



xxviii 



CONTENTS. 



BOOK II. 

PAGE 

The Doctrine relating to the Canon, (Propp. 420, 421,) , , 429 

CHAPTER I. 

First Class of Proofs taken from the Wisdom and Faithfulness of 

God, (Prop. 422,) . . , . . .431 

Section First. — Books of the Old Testament which are 

said to have been Lost, (Propp. 423-426,) . , 433 

Section Second. — Books of the New Testament which 

are said to have been Lost, (Propp. 427-432,) . 435 

CHAPTER II. 

Second Class of Proofs founded on the Canon of the Old Testa- 
ment, (Prop. 433,) ...... 440 

Section First. — The astonishing and immovable Unan- 
imity of the Jews on the subject of the Canon, 
(Propp. 434, 435,) 440 

Section Second. — The Testimony of the Apostles to the 

Canon, (Prop. 436,) 443 

Section Third. — The Testimony of Jesus Christ, (Prop. 

437,) 444 

Section Fourth. — First Inference relative to the Old 

Testament, (Propp. 438-441,) . . . .446 

Section Fifth. — The Second Inference, relating to the 

New Testament, (Propp. 442-449,) . . .450 

CHAPTER III. 

Third Class of Proofs taken from the Declarations of Scripture, 

(Propp. 450-453,) 457 

CHAPTER IV. 

Fourth Class of Proofs — An assemblage of Facts relative to the 
Old Testament, attesting a Divine Intervention in its Preser- 
vation by the Jewish nation, . . c . .461 
Section First. — The constant and wonderful Fidelity of 
the Jews in reference to the Canon, from Moses to 
Jesus Christ, .... .461 



CONTENTS. Xxix 

PAGE 

The First Fact, (Prop. 454,) . . .461 

The Second Fact, (Prop. 455,) . . .462 

The Third Fact, (Prop. 456,) . . , 462 

The Fourth Fact, (Prop. 457,) . . .462 

Section Second. — The Fidelity, not less astonishing, of 
the Jews to their Canon since Jesus Christ to the 
Present Time, ...... 463 

The Fifth Fact, (Prop. 458,) . . .463 
The Sixth Fact, (Prop. 459,) . . .463 

Section Third. — The Text compared with the Versions, 464 
The Seventh Fact, (Propp. 460-463,) . . 464 

Section Fourth. — The serious Divisions of the Jews, . 467 
The Eighth Fact, (Prop. 464,) . . .467 

Section Fifth. — The Example of Jesus and His Apostles 

in relation to the Apocrypha, .... 467 

The Ninth Fact, (Propp. 465, 466,) . . 467 
Section Sixth.- — Divine Injunctions, . . . 468 
The Tenth Fact, (Prop. 467,) . . .468 

Section Seventh. — The Divine Dispensations, . . 469 
The Eleventh Fact, (Propp. 468, 469,) . . 469 

Section Eighth. — The Calamities of the Jews, . . 470 
The Twelfth Fact, (Prop. 470,) . . .470 

Section Ninth. — The Miracle of their Eace, . . 472 
The Thirteenth Fact, (Prop. 471,) . . . 472 

Section Tenth. — Human Books intruded into the Jew- 
ish Canon by one of the Christian sects, . . 473 
The Fourteenth Fact, (Propp. 472-474,) . . 473 
Section Eleventh. — The Testimony of the Eastern 

Church, . . . . . ... 475 

The Fifteenth and Sixteenth Facts, (Propp. 475- 

479,) 475 

Section Twelfth. — The Eesistance of the Eastern Church 
is rendered more striking by the universality of the 
use of the Septuagint, ..... 478 
The Seventeenth Fact, (Prop. 480,) . . 478 

Section Thirteenth. — Inference to be drawn from these 

Seventeen Facts, (Propp. 481-483,) . . .479 

CHAPTER V. 

On the Apocrypha, . . . . . . .482 

CHAPTER VI. 

Fifth Class of Proofs — A new assemblage of Facts relating to the 

New Testament, (Prop. 520,) ..... 483 



CONTENTS. 



Section First. — The Unanimity of all the Churches, . 483 
The First Fact, (Propp. 521-526,) . . 483 

Section Second. — The exceptional Liberty which always 

presided over the Destinies of the Canon, . 487 
The Second Fact, (Propp. 527-530,) . . 487 

Section Third. — The Progress of Minds in a way reverse 

of their natural direction, . . . .491 

The Third Fact, (Prop. 531,) . . .491 

Section Fourth.— During the two centuries and a half 
in which the Ancient Church still hesitated respect- 
ing the Antilegomena, she never received a Spurious 
Book into the Canon, ..... 492 
The Fourth Fact, (Prop. 532,) . . .492 

Section Fifth. — The astonishing Independence of the 
Church in reference to its Literary Opponents on the 
subject of the Canon, ..... 493 
The Fifth Fact, (Propp. 533-546,) . . 493 



CHAPTER TIL 

The attempts of the Church of Rome against the Scriptures, com- 
pared with her reserve towards the Canon of the New Testa- 
ment, strongly attest the Divine Agency by a novel class of 
facts, ........ 508 

The Sixth Fact, (Propp. 547-549,) . . 508 

Section First. — Her Dogmas and Rites opposed to the 

Scriptures, (Prop. 550,) .... 510 

Section Second. — The Infallibility of Rome opposed to 

that of the Scriptures, (Prop. 551,) . . . 512 

Section Third. — The aversion of Rome to the Written 

Word, (Prop. 552,) .513 

Section Fourth. — The anxiety of Rome to keep the 
Bible at a distance from the People, and the People 
from it, (Propp. 553-558,) . . . .514 

Section Fifth. — The long and cruel Severities of the 
Church of Rome inflicted on those who wish to read 
the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, (Propp. 559-562,) 518 

Section Sixth. — The Decrees of the Church of Rome re- 
duce the Scriptures to a level with Tradition, (Propp. 
563, 564,) 520 

Section Seventh. — The Decrees of tbe Church of Rome 
place the Scriptures below the Roman Pontiff, (Prop. 
565,) ....... 521 

Section Eighth. — The Power of all these Facts united 
to confirm the Doctrine of the Canon, (Propp. 566- 
568,) . . . . . .522 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

PAGE 

The Seventh Class of Facts — the Pious Frauds in support of the 
Doctrines and Pretensions of the Roman Pontiffs, (Propp. 569- 
571,) . 526 

Section First. — The False Decretals, (Propp. 572-576,) . 527 
Section Second. — The Donation of Constantine, (Propp. 

577,578,) . . . . .531 

Section Third. — False Books of the Fathers fabricated 

or quoted, (Propp. 579-581,) . . . . 533 

Section Fourth. — The Breviary, (Propp. 582-584,) . 536 
Section Fifth. — The Genuine "Works of the Fathers 

falsified, (Propp. 585-592,) . . . . 538 

Section Sixth. — The Index Expurgatorius, (Propp. 593- 

597, ) . 542 

Section Seventh. — Conclusion of this Chapter, (Propp. 

598, 599,) 546 



CHAPTER IX. 

The Decisive Adoption of the Second Canon contrary to the Natu- 
ral Inclination of Men's Minds, .... 548 
Eighth Fact, (Propp. 600-610,) . 548 



CHAPTER X. 

The Wonderful Preservation of the Original Text, . . . 555 
Ninth Fact, (Propp. 611-615,) . . .555 



CHAPTER XL 

The Striking Contrast between the Errors of Rome regarding the 

Old Testament, and its Fidelity regarding the New, . . 560 
Tenth Fact, (Propp. 616-621,) . . .560 



CHAPTER XII. 

The Destinies of the Epistle to the Hebrews, . . . 566 
Eleventh Fact, (Propp. 622-625,) , . 566 

Section First. — The variations of Rome three times in 

three hundred years, (Propp. 622, 623,) . . 566 



xxxii 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Section Second. — The firmness of Rome since the fix- 
ation of the Canon, (Propp. 624, 625,) . . 567 

Section Third. — Two considerations which render this 

Proof more striking, (Propp. 626-630,) . . 569 



CHAPTER XIII. 

The great Manifestations of that Providence which preserves the 
Oracles of God, rendering it visible on three occasions in the 
stormy times of Diocletian, of Charles V., and of Napoleon I., 
(Prop. 631,) 573 

Section First. — The Wonderful Preservation of the Scrip- 
tures after the Persecutions of the Fourth Century, 573 
Twelfth Fact, (Propp. 632-637,) . . .573 

Section Second.— The Restoration of the Bible by means 
of the Reformation at the beginning of the Sixteenth 
Century, (Propp. 638-657,) . . . .580 

Section Third. — The Bible Society, at the beginning of 
the Nineteenth Century, circulating the Scriptures 
throughout the World, (Propp. 658-676,) . . 608 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Final Inferences, (Propp. 677-682,) 622 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCRYPHA. 

Section First. — History of the Apocrypha to the time of the 

Council of Trent, (Propp. 484-488,) . . . .629 

Section Second.— Unanimity of the Testimony of the Church 

against the Decree of the Council of Trent, (Propp. 489-492,) 635 

Section Third. — The Allegations of the Defenders of the Decree, 

(Propp. 493-519,). 646 



CANONICITY 

OF 

THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. 



The object of this work is to demonstrate, from the Word of God 
and from history, the exclusive right of the thirty-nine books of 
the Old Testament, and of the twenty-seven books of the New, to 
a place in the list of inspired writings. 
This right is called their canonicity. 

We shall first establish it from history, as regards the New 
Testament ; and then establish it by doctrinal evidence, as regards 
the whole Bible. 



1. The Christian Church, as Paul declares, is "built on the 
foundation of the apostles and prophets," who preached the gospel 
to it, — Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone, on which 
the whole building, fitly framed together, groweth unto a holy 
temple in the Lord; and on which all true believers also are 
builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. 

2. It is, therefore, on the foundation of Jesus Christ, and of 
those whom He appointed " apostles and prophets," that the Church 
finds from age to age, as from day to day, in the constant use of 
the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, her life, her growth, 
her power, and her beauty. 

3. In a previous work we have, we trust, adequately proved the 

A 



2 



CANONICITY OF THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. 



divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. It is to their integrity, 
their authenticity, their divine origin, that our attention is now 
directed. 

4. Since, however, as the reader will soon perceive, the evidence 
which establishes the canon of the New Testament establishes, at 
the same time, that of the Old, we shall, in Part First, confine our 
inquiry to the former, and reserve for Part Second our examination 
of the latter, in reviewing the providential events with which it is 
connected, &c. 

5. The Church has two modes of verifying the canon, — that of 
science, which appeals to history or sacred criticism, and that of 
faith, which appeals to a doctrine or principle (" a une dogme") 
This treatise we shall divide into two parts. The first, dedicated 
to the scientific method, will chiefly aim at establishing the authen- 
ticity of the New Testament. The second, extending to Moses and 
the Prophets as much as to the New Testament, and following the 
line of faith, will seek to illustrate what we call the Doctrine of the 
Canon. 



PAET FIEST. 



CANONICITY OF ALL THE BOOKS OF THE 
NEW TESTAMENT. 



CHAPTER L 



DEFINITIONS OF THE CANON. 

6. The use of the term canon,! in the acceptation it still retains, 
may be traced to a very high antiquity. In Hebrew, Greek, and 
Latin, the words njjj, Kdvvrj, Kdvva, Kdvcov, canna, all de- 
rived from the same source, literally mean a reed, a straight rod, 
a cane, a measure, a rule ; and Kdvcov, in a figurative sense, more 
particularly denotes a very accurate and perfect rule. It was in 
the strict and literal sense that the words rod and canon were 
applied in the Middle Ages to tubes used in throwing projectiles 
by means of gunpowder ; and it was figuratively that Paul said to 
the Galatians, " As many as walk by this rule (this canon), peace 
be on them ; " 2 and to the Philippians, " Whereto we have attained, 
let us walk by the same rule/' 3 

7. So early as in the times of Paul, the grammarians of Alexandria 
used the same term to denote the whole assemblage of such ap- 
proved works as were deemed standards of excellence in literature; 
and ecclesiastical writers soon adopted it to express sometimes 
the whole compass of Christian doctrine — our rule of life ; some- 
times the Sacred Volume — our only rule of faith ; and sometimes 
the list of Scriptures, of which that rule consists. 

The last acceptation finally predominated, and in this sense, 
accordingly, it will be employed in the present work. 



1 It was in Italy and in Italian (cannone or grande canna) that the term was 
used to denote an instrument of war. 

3 Gal. vi. 16. * Phil, iii 1G. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE IDEA OF A NEW TESTAMENT CANON AS EARLY AS THE DAYS 
OF THE APOSTLES. 

The idea of a New Testament canon must have existed at a very 
early period of the Christian Church. This may be inferred from 
the nature of the case, independently of direct evidence on the 
subject. This idea must have had its origin from the moment 
when the " apostles and prophets/' who had " preached the gospel 
with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven," began to transmit to 
their converts apostolic epistles or narratives of the Saviour's life 
and discourses. 

In fact, their knowledge of the Old Testament had fully pre- 
pared Christian congregations for the reception of such docu- 
ments. That sacred volume, whose canon had been formed for 
centuries, and about whose divine authority the Jews, as Jose- 
phus informs us, were entirely agreed, had at all periods been 
revered by the people of God. It was revered by the apostles, 
who called it as a whole " the oracles of God." It was revered by 
the Son of God himself, who called it " the Law, your Law, the 
Scripture, the Scriptures!' It was revered by the Christian con- 
verts, who read it solemnly in their assemblies. Thus naturally 
arose in the minds of Christians the notion of a collection of New 
Testament writings corresponding to the collection of the books 
forming the Old Testament. 

8. The notion of a canon of Scripture had been, for fifteen 
hundred years, the great characteristic of the Hebrew nation, and 
was regarded by them as inseparable from their existence as God's 
chosen people. This notion, which the Israelitish church received 
in the wilderness, and ever afterwards preserved, was not that of a 



THE OEIGIN OF THE IDEA. 



7 



completed system of legislation, promulgated once for all, and 
never to receive any additions. On the contrary, it was that of a 
collection of documents, commencing with the five books of Moses, 
and gradually enlarging from age to age by fresh communications 
from heaven, during eleven hundred years, as God, from time to 
time, raised up successive prophets, and closing only with Malachi, 
when the spirit of prophecy became silent for four centuries. It 
was, therefore, quite natural that, at the advent of the Messiah, the 
Church should look for fresh communications ; as the spirit of 
prophecy had just been restored to it, men of God, " apostles and 
prophets/' had been raised up, even more marvellous than the 
prophets of old. We will even maintain that it was impossible 
such an expectation should not exist. The period of Christ's 
advent was far more important and more solemn than that of its 
announcement. Its revelations were more striking, its objects 
more divine, its promises more rich, its prophets more powerful, 
its signs and wonders more marvellous. 

9. Besides, it must not be forgotten that the Church had its 
origin in the Synagogue, and that, during the first fifteen years of 
its existence, all its members were Israelites. All its preachers, 
as well as all its early converts, were Jews. At the period of 
Paul's last visit to the Christians of Jerusalem, the members of 
the Church there, the mother of all the other Churches of Christ, 
already amounted to myriads, (Acts xxi. 20, irocrai fxvpiaZe^) In 
all the cities of the Gentiles the apostles began their labours with 
the children of Israel. In addressing them, they constantly held 
in their hands the canon of Scripture; incessantly urging them, 
as Christ had done, to search the Scriptures, as testifying of Christ, 
(John v. 39.) On all occasions they " expounded to them and 
testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, 
both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morn- 
ing till evening," (Acts xxviii. 23 ;) " Saying none other things 
than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come," 
(Acts xxvi. 22.) Though, when addressing heathen audiences, 
they did not directly quote the sacred writings, they earnestly 
directed to them the attention of believing Gentiles from the 
moment of their conversion. " Now to Him," said Paul, in con- 
cluding his Epistle to the Eomans, " to Him that is of power to 



8 



THE IDEA OF A NEW TESTAMENT CANON 



stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus 
Christ, (according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept 
secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, by the 
scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the 
everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of 
the faith ;) to God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for 
ever. Amen." 

Thus, on the one hand, the idea of a canon of Scripture was, as 
it were, innate in the minds of the people of God, and inseparable 
from their conception of a church ; while, on the other, the idea 
of adding to the sacred books of the Old Testament the no less 
sacred books of the New, as successively put forth, was equally 
inseparable from their notion of Scripture. 

10. The early existence of this idea of a Scripture canon is dis- 
tinctly attested by the history of early Christianity. Far from 
being a subsequent conception, it appears conspicuously under 
every varied form, from the very commencement of the Christian 
Church, both among the enemies and the champions of the gospel. 

We shall examine this point more in detail by and by. In the 
meantime, we confine ourselves to a few quotations. 

Peter, towards the end of his career, refers, in his second epistle, 
to " all the epistles " of Paul, as already collected, and calls them 
" Scriptures ; " putting them on a level with the books of the Old 
Testament, which he calls " the other Scriptures." 1 

The primitive Christians successively collected the apostolic writ- 
ings from the moment of their appearance ; received them as of 
the same authority with the Old Testament, read them in their 
assemblies, and called them, as Peter did, the Scriptures, or, as the 
Fathers did, the Book, ra BifiXla; the New Testament ; 2 the 

1 2 Pet. iii. 16. This testimony, independently of the objections of some per- 
sons to the canonicity of this epistle, incontestably proves the antiquity of the 
usage that regarded the books of the New Testament as part of the Scriptures ; 
for we shall demonstrate the antiquity of this epistle, independently of its canon- 
icity. 

2 See Lardner, vol. viii., page 197. See also vol. ii., page 529. As Paul had 
given the name of "Old Testament" to the writings of Moses and the Prophets, 
it was quite natural that the writings of the Evangelists and Apostles should re- 
ceive the name of " New Testament," and that the books admitted into the Canon 
should be styled Testamental or ivdiddrjKai, (Eusebius, H. E. vi., 25.) 



AS EAELY AS THE APOSTLES. 



9 



Divine Document; 1 the Sacred Digest ; 2 the Oracles of God; or 
the Gospel and the Apostle, the Gospels and the Apostles ; 3 after 
the example of Jesus Christ, who had called the Old Testament 
" the Law and the Prophets." It thus appears at how early a 
period the Christian Church began to speak of the Canon or Rule, 
and to give the name of "canonical books''' to such as formed a 
part of that infallible code. 

Irenseus, born in Greece in the year 120, and martyred in the 
year 202, 4 speaking of the Scriptures as divine, calls them the Ride, 
or the Canon, of truth — rcavova rr/s akrjOeLas.S 

Tertullian, in the same century, contrasting Valentine with 
Marcion, both deeply immersed in the Gnostic heresy, says of the 
former, about the year 138, that he, at least, appeared to make use 
of a complete document, meaning a complete and entire collec- 
tion of the books of the New Testament, as then received in the 
Church. 6 

Clement of Alexandria, in the same century, speaking of a 
quotation taken from an apocryphal book, exclaims against those 
who thought proper to follow any authority besides " the true 
evangelical canon ;" and Origen, born seventeen years before the end 
of the same century, zealous, as Eusebius? says, in maintaining the 
ecclesiastical canon, rbv ifCK\7]o~iao-TiKbv (jyvXdrTcov Kavova, " de- 
clares that he only recognised the four Gospels ; which alone," 
he adds, " are received without controversy in the universal Church 
spread over the whole earth/' 8 The same Origen, in giving us a 
list of the canonical Scriptures, calls them the Testamental Scrip- 
tures (ai evhidO^Kau ypa^au), that is, " the Scriptures contained in 
the New Testament/' 

Athanasius, in his Festal epistle, 9 speaks of three sorts of books : 

3 Tertullian adv. Marcion, lib. v., cap. 13. 2 Ibid., lib. iv., cap. 13. 

3 Clement of Alexandria, Strom, vii., pages 706, 757. Ignatius, Ep. to the Philad., 
ch. 5; Ep. to Diognetus, ch. 11. Justin Martyr, First ApoJ., ch. 67; Tertul- 
lian, De Graec. Scrip., cap. 36; Apol., cap. 39. Hippolytus the Martyr, On Anti- 
christ, ch. 58. 

4 Or, according to others, in the year 140. 

5 Adv. Heneses, lib. iii., cap. 11; lib. iv., cap. 35 and 69. 

8 Tertullian, De Prescript. Heeretic, cap. 30, 38. 

7 Ecc. Hist., vi., ch. 25. » Ibid. 

9 Chap, xxxix., vol. ii., p. 961, edit. Benedict, ra Kavovi{6fi€va Kai napadodevra 
TTio~Tcv6tvTa re 0(ia dual /3</3\t'a. 



10 



CANONICITY VEEY EEMOTE. 



the canonical, (which are those recognised by the Church at the 
present day ;) the ecclesiastical, (which were allowed to be read in 
Christian assemblies ;) and the apocryphal. 

When, subsequently, the Council of Laodicea (in 364) ordained 
that no other book should be read in the churches but the Canoni- 
cal Scriptures of the Old and the New Testament, it was so far 
from then introducing for the first time the notion of canonical 
books, as distinguished from uncanonical, that it merely referred 
to principles long established in the universal Church. 

Jerome, also, frequently speaks of the Canon of Scripture : 
" Ecclesiasticus," says he, " Judith, Tobit, The Shepherd, . . . are 
not in the Canon. The Church permits the reading of Judith, 
Tobit, and the Maccabees ; but it does not receive them into the 
list of Canonical Scriptures. The books of Wisdom and Ecclesi- 
asticus may be read for edification by the people, but not as 
authority for establishing points of doctrine." 1 

Such is the origin of the idea of a Canon of Scripture, and such 
is its import. 

1 See also Lardner, vol. x., pp. 41, 43, 52. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE CHURCH, FROM THE COMMENCEMENT, REGARDED THE COLLEC- 
TION OF SCRIPTURES AS A HARMONIC WHOLE. 

11. The primitive Church received the books of the New Testa- 
ment one after another ; but regarded the collection, in its gradual 
formation, as one distinct whole, having God for its author, and 
the manifestation of Jesus Christ as its sole purpose, in the same 
way that the ancient Israel of God regarded the code of the Old 
Testament, in its gradual formation, as one harmonic whole, having 
God for its author, and His plan of redeeming His elect as its 
sole object. 

12. We shall give merely one or two illustrations of this at 
present, taken from the records of the first century, or of the be- 
ginning of the second. The author of the beautiful Epistle to 
Diognetus, a disciple, as he states, of the apostles, represents the 
Law and the Prophets, the Gospel and the Apostles, as acting 
in concert to bring grace and joy into the Church. "Thus," 
says he, " the terror of the Law is proclaimed, the grace of the 
Prophets made known, the faith of the Gospels established, and 
the teaching of the Apostles maintained, and the grace of the 
Church leaps with joy.'' 1 

Ignatius likewise, about the year 107, in one of his epistles, 
said to the Philadelphians (ch. v.) : " Your prayers will obtain for 
me to be perfected in God, fleeing for refuge to the Gospel, as 
the flesh of Jesus, and to the apostles, as the Presbytery of the 
Church. We adhere also to the prophets, who themselves pro- 

1 Chap. xi. Eira (pofios vop,ov uSerai, Kal rrpo(pr)Tcc>u X l ^P ls ytvwaKcraij Kal 
ivayyikiuv nivTis idpvcrai, Kal anodTokoiv napudoais cpvXdacrfTai, Kal (kkXtj- 
cius X (l P ls o-Kipra. 



12 



THE HARMONIC WHOLE. 



claimed the Gospel, hoped in Christ, waited for His coming in 
the unity of Jesus Christ, and found salvation through faith in 
Him." l 

13. As the Canon of the New Testament is a collection of books, 
written at different times and in different places during the last 
half of the apostolic century, by eight inspired authors, it could 
only be completed gradually, and could only assume its entireness 
towards the end of the first century, or at the beginning of the 
century following. 

1 Upocrcpvyoov r<5 ~Evayye\la ms (rapid 'Irjcrov, kcu tols ^ AnocrroXois cos 
Trpeo-ftvTeplcp eiacXrjo-ias. Kai roiis Hpo<t>r]Tas, &c. This epistle, however, is 
one of those which Mr Cureton has left out in his Syriac edition. See proposi- 
tion 250. 



CHAPTER IV. 



FIRST FORMATION OF THE CANON. 

14. During the first fifteen years after the death of our Lord the 
Church was brought into existence, grew and was nourished by the 
oral preaching of the truth, and by the scriptures of the Old Testa- 
ment, explained either by themselves or by the teaching of the 
apostles and evangelists, — " God also bearing them witness, both 
with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the 
Holy Ghost, according to his own will," (Heb. ii. 4 ; 2 Pet. i. 21.) 

15. The apostles and evangelists, while preaching the Word to 
the Churches, " by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven," con- 
stantly appealed, as their Master had done, to the already closed 
canon of the Old Testament. They required their disciples to 
study it incessantly ; and declared it " able to make the man of 
God perfect, wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Jesus 
Christ, and thoroughly furnished unto all good works," (2 Tim. iii. 
15-17.) 

16. It was not till fifteen years after the ascension of our Savi- 
our that the old canon of the " oracles of God," which had been 
closed for four hundred years, was re-opened to receive the earliest 
writing of the New Testament. I mean the epistles of Paul to 
the Thessalonians ; for there is every reason to believe tha^ the 
Gospel of Mark, and even that of Matthew, did not precede these ; 
and that the Gospels of Luke and John followed them after a very 
long interval. Thus, for two or three years, the sacred canon of 
the New Testament consisted merely of these two epistles, which 
Paul, aided by Silas and Timotheus, had written, about the year 
48, to the infant church of Thessalonica. 

17. It is, therefore, very probably owing to the circumstance 



FIKST FOEMATION OF THE CANON. 



that these two epistles were to commence the new collection of 
" oracles of God," that the apostle from the first took such pains to 
intimate to the Church their divine authority. He " charges them 
by the Lord," to keep them, to study them, and to spread copies of 
them. He solemnly enjoins them, by invoking God's awful name, to 
cause this earliest portion of Scripture to be made known and read 
in all the churches of Christ. " I charge you," says he, in conclusion, 
(pp/cityo vfxa^ tov Kvpiov,) " I charge you by the Lord that this 
epistle be read to all the holy brethren," (1 Thess. v. 27.) This 
portion of Scripture he addressed to a church that his Gospel had 
reached, " not in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy 
Ghost," (1 Thess. i. 5 ;) and he carefully reminds them that the 
word he had brought to them was that of God ; and thanks God 
that they had received it, "not as the word of man, but, as it is 
in reality, the word of God!' 

18. It was during the sixteen or seventeen years that elapsed 
from the appearance of these first two books of the New Testa- 
ment (in 48), and the death of Paul (in 64 or 65), that nearly all 
the other scriptures of the New Testament were written ; at least 
the twenty boohs we shall by and by have occasion to mention as 
the first canon; that is, the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, 
the first thirteeen epistles of Paul, the First Epistle of Peter, and 
the First of John. 

19. It was at a later period, that is, towards the end of the first 
century, that the other seven books of the New Testament were 
put forth, with the exception of the Epistle of James, which must 
have been written about the year 61 ; as, according to the historian 
Josephus, James was stoned to death during the troubles that 
preceded the destruction of Jerusalem, that is, immediately after 
the death of the governor Festus, and while the arrival of Albinus 
in J«dea was still looked for. 1 

20. Thus the whole canon of the scriptures of the New Testa- 
ment was commenced and completed during the latter half of the 
first century. It was during this period that the Church, already 
formed and unceasingly extending, reached the extremities of the 
earth, through the incomparable labours of Paul, Peter, John, 

1 Antiq., xx., c. 8. 



FIRST FORMATION OF THE CANON. 



15 



Thomas, and other apostles, as well as of so many other witnesses, 
whose names, unknown to us, are recorded in heaven. 

21. It is, therefore, necessary we should distinctly understand 
that the primitive Church, during her militant and triumphant 
march through the first half-century of her existence, saw her 
New Testament canon forming in her hand, as a nosegay is gra- 
dually formed in the hand of a lady walking through plots of 
flowers with the proprietor of the garden by her side. As she 
advances, the latter presents to her flower after flower, till she 
finds herself in possession of an entire bunch. And, just as the 
nosegay attracts admiring attention before it is filled up, and as 
soon as the few first flowers have been put together, so the New 
Testament canon began to exist for the Christian Church from 
the moment the earliest portions of inspired Scriptures had been 
put into her hands. 

In the same manner, under the Old Testament in the time of 
David, a thousand years before the apostles, the Church of Israel 
already possessed a sacred canon, consisting of seven or eight 
books, and called it her Law, her divine and perfect Law, though 
two-thirds of the Old Testament were still wanting. " The Law," 
she already exclaimed, " is a light to my feet ; it refreshes my soul ; 
I talk of it the whole day long." In the same way, also, five hun- 
dred years before David, and in the time of Moses, the Church of 
Israel possessed her sacred canon, and expressed herself thus : — 
" Happy art thou, Israel ! who is like unto thee, people, 
saved of the Lord ! for this Law is not a vain thing for us, it is 
our life," (Deut. xxxiii. 29, xxxii. 47.) 

22. The Church, at each successive period, was responsible for 
the books God had already given her, and not for those He might 
afterwards give. At all times she received from Him those she 
required; and at all times she had reason to say, with David, 
" The law of the Lord is perfect." 

23. It will easily be perceived how important it is, for the con- 
firming of our faith, that the New Testament, instead of having 
been communicated all at once by the Founder of our religion 
Himself personally recording His acts and His revelations, should 
have emanated from Him successively during the space of half-a- 
century, in a series of twenty-seven writings, the productions of 



16 



FIEST FORMATION OF THE CANON. 



eight different individuals, separated from each other by great 
distances of place, and distinguished from each other by circum- 
stances the most dissimilar ; some of them learned, others unlet- 
tered ; some in Judea, others in Eome ; some writing only ten 
or fifteen years after the death of their Master, others fifty years 
after that event ; some of them having been personally strangers 
to Him, one of them even His most bitter persecutor ; while some 
of them had been among His most devoted and assiduous friends. 
The result of all this diversity is, that the harmony with which all, 
notwithstanding, reveal to us His life, His character, His origin, 
and His doctrines, — the unchanging agreement they maintain on 
subjects the most transcendent, as well as in expounding duties 
the most completely misunderstood ; in a word, that marvellous 
and deep unity in their teaching stands forth both more striking 
and more majestic than it otherwise could have done. 

No wonder, then, that the Sacred Volume — fitted to charm every 
people, even the most savage, — responding everywhere to the 
wants of man, and adapting itself through every age to every stage 
of civilisation — should everywhere elevate the human character, 
and produce, under all circumstances, effects that no other teaching 
could ever achieve ; changing the affections, subduing the will, 
giving birth to heroism in every form, and civilising in the space 
of a few years nations the rudest : as, in the earliest periods of 
its existence, it shewed itself able to overthrow, in the most refined 
regions of the world, idolatries whose origin was lost in the night 
of antiquity, renewing in its wonderful progress the face of the 
world. 



CHAPTER Y. 



OEAL PEEACHING WAS, OF NECESSITY, BY SOME YEAES ANTEEIOE 
TO WEITTEN PEEACHING, OE THE GIFT OF NEW SCEEPTUEES. 

24. It was fitting that the apostles should, for some years, 
preach by word of mouth, before commencing the New Testament 
canon ; as it was necessary that, — before adding new inspired writ- 
ings to the Sacred Volume, the continuation of which had been in- 
terrupted for four centuries, — they should be able to intrust their 
deposit to living churches spread over the whole civilised world. 
It was, accordingly, indispensable that an intelligent and believing 
people of God should first be gathered, either from the Gentiles or 
from the Jews. This was essential, especially for two reasons : — 
First, that it might distinctly appear that the religion of Jesus 
Christ, far from being at variance with Moses and the prophets, 
was, on the contrary, founded on what their inspired writings had 
revealed ; and, secondly, that when the divine epistles which were 
to form the commencement of the New Testament canon appeared, 
there might be a people prepared to receive, preserve, and transmit 
them. It was requisite there should be pious and truly converted 
men, formed into churches, to whom narratives and letters should 
be addressed, and who should successively receive these new scrip- 
tures, and attest their authenticity, either by reading them in their 
solemn assemblies every Sabbath or every Lord's day, (and Justin 
Martyr testifies that this was actually done or by preserving 
their original texts in their houses of prayer, (as, according to the 
testimony of Tertullian, they did.) Thus was the written word 
faithfully transmitted, from age to age, to all the churches of God. 

1 First Apology, G7. 
B 



CHAPTER VL 



HISTOEICAL DIVISION OF THE CANON INTO THEEE DISTINCT PAETS. 

25. We shall apply the name of First Canon (or First Rule) to 
the list of twenty books enumerated above, (prop. 18,) as these were 
circulated before the others, during the lives of the apostles, and 
under their immediate care, and at once received by the whole 
Christian community, both of the East and of the West; nor, 
during the space of eighteen centuries, has either their authenticity 
or their Divine authority ever been called in question by the 
churches of Christ. 

26. This First Canon, consisting of books never controverted, 
forms, by itself, eight-ninths of the New Testament, if we reckon 
by the number of verses ; for out of 7959, they contain 7059. 

27. We shall give the name of Second Canon (or Second Rule) 
to the five small and late epistles of James, Peter, Jude, and John, 
collectively. These books were written shortly before the death 
of these men of God, and circulated after their decease, at a period 
of trouble, when their writers were no longer present to attest 
them. Not being addressed, like the first thirteen epistles of 
Paul, to individuals or particular churches directed to guard them 
and make them known, these five brief epistles were at first re- 
ceived only by most, and not by all, ecclesiastical writers and 
Christian churches, (joh iroXkols, roh wXelcrTois, says Eusebius.) 
Some churches hesitating, for a longer or shorter space of time, to 
acknowledge their Divine authority, they were at length univer- 
sally received, from the date of the first universal council of the 
churches of Christ. 

28. The second canon, computed by the number of verses, only 



DIVISION OF THE CANON INTO THEEE PAETS. 



19 



amounts to the thirty-sixth part of the New Testament; for, out 
of 7959 verses, it contains only 222. 

29. We shall, lastly, give the name of Second-first Canon to two 
books collectively — the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse 
— as these cannot be placed unrestrictedly either in the first canon 
or in the second. They cannot be placed in the second, because, 
from the moment of their appearance, and during the first two 
centuries of the Church, they were received universally and with- 
out opposition. Eusebius, for this reason, classes them with the 
^incontroverted, (or ofjuokoyovfieva) Neither can they be placed un- 
restrictedly in the first canon, as, after being generally received, 
they were subsequently controverted by certain churches for some 
time ; the one book chiefly in the West, and the other chiefly in 
the East. 

We shall, by and by, touch on these facts more in detail. 



CHAPTER VII 



THIS THEEEFOLD DIVISION OF THE CANON IS, MOREOVER, WAR- 
RANTED BY THE MOST AUTHENTIC DOCUMENTS OF THE CHURCH. 

30. In thus dividing the canon of the New Testament into 
three distinct parts, we would by no means be understood as 
considering the Divine authority of some of its books more certain 
than that of the others. We shall, by and by, prove that, though 
under a purely historical point of view, the evidence in favour of 
all of them is not the same ; our belief in the Divine authority of 
them all is established in one and the same manner, and on the 
surest grounds. We readily, however, adopt this threefold divi- 
sion, both in conformity with the facts of ecclesiastical history, and 
for the purpose of proceeding more methodically in the historical 
demonstration of the canonicity of the New Testament scriptures. 

Section First. 

three ante-nicene catalogues. 

31. To warrant this threefold distinction, ecclesiastical litera- 
ture supplies, in addition to numerous testimonies of the fathers, 
three ancient catalogues of the Scriptures, not indeed all identical, 
but all serving to establish the distinction in question. All three 
are anterior to the famous Council of Nice. The first of these 
goes back to about the period of the death of John ; that is, to 
the end of the first, or beginning of the second century ; the 
second, to the beginning of the third century ; and the last, to the 
beginning of the fourth. The first is derived from the ancient 
Syriac version of the New Testament, called the Peshito. 1 The 
second is furnished by Origen, and that twice ; once directly, in a 

1 That is, the Simple, — that which gives the natural or literal sense. 



ANTE-NICENE CATALOGUES. 



21 



Homily on Joshua ;l and again indirectly, in the quotations which 
Eusebius makes from Origen's commentaries on Matthew, John, 
and the Epistle to the Hebrews. 2 The third is given by Eusebius 
himself, in 324, in the third book of " Ecclesiastical History/' 

These, then, are the only trustworthy catalogues, anterior to the 
Council of Nice, that have reached us. We do not here reckon 
either the catalogue contained in the apocryphal productions called 
the Apostolic Canons, nor the anonymous Eoman catalogue, for 
which we are indebted to the discoveries made, in 1738, by Mura- 
tori in the Ambrosian library at Milan, and usually called the 
Muratori document. 3 It is a deeply-mutilated fragment ; the 
date and the author of which are entirely unknown. Defective 
at the beginning, defective again towards the end, it exists only in 
the form of a Latin translation, singularly barbarous and strangely 
inaccurate. Librariorum imperitia, .... incuria atque igno- 
rantia, .... scripturam saturavit atque fcedavit, says Muratori 
himself. In a word, the document (which, moreover, gives us 
nearly the same canon as the Peshito) is too imperfect to enable 
us to determine doubtful points connected with the history of the 
canon ; but as it may otherwise be of great use towards establish- 
ing the authenticity of our Scriptures, we shall again direct special 
attention to it in Book II. 4 

Section Second. 

peshito catalogued 

32. The Peshito is of all versions of the New Testament the 
most ancient, the most celebrated, and the most valued. It has 
been known in Europe only since the year 1552, on the occasion 
of Moses of Mardin being sent on a deputation from the Patri- 
arch of the Maronites to Pope Julius III. Michaelis, who, with 
many other eminent scholars, considers it of the first century, 

1 Horn. 8. Opp. xii., p. 410 : Latin translation by Ruffinus. 
3 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., vi, c. 25. 

3 Muratori, Antiq. Italics?, vol. iii., p. 854. 4 See Propp. 193-198. 

5 On this version may be consulted, — 1. Adler, N. T. Vers. Syriacsc, Copenh. 
1789. 2. Hug, Introduct., p. 62. 3. Dr Wiseman, Horse Syriacse, Rome, 1828. 
4. Wickelhaus, De N. T. Vers. Syriaca Peschito, Halle, 1850. 5. W. Cureton, 
Remains of a very ancient Recension of the Four Gospels in Syriac, London, 
1858. 



22 



ANTE-NICENE CATALOGUES. 



or, at the latest, of the second, pronounces it the best of all known 
versions in regard to ease of expression, elegance, and fidelity. 
All who have studied it admire the good sense, the erudition, the 
independence, and the accuracy of the translators. As to its 
antiquity, every body will admit that the Aramaean-speaking 
Christians must have early furnished themselves with the Scrip- 
tures in their own language. They were, in fact, the first to re- 
ceive the gospel : their churches were very numerous, not only in 
Syria, but on the banks of the Euphrates and of the Tigris, in the 
Adiabene and the Osroene territories, at Edessa, Nisibe, and Carrhse; 
and their literature was then in a high state of advancement. 

The scriptures of the New Testament must then have been 
very early translated by them into the language spoken by the 
primitive Church, the language spoken also by Jesus Christ him- 
self. We accordingly find, in the history of Eusebius, traces of 
its being already usual in those parts to read and quote the Syriac 
scriptures of the New Testament. In speaking of the famous 
Hegesippus, the most ancient ecclesiastical historian, Eusebius, to 
prove to us that Hegesippus was undoubtedly an Israelitish Chris- 
tian, remarks, that he took his quotations from the Gospel accord- 
ing to the Hebrews, and from the Syriac Gospel, (ire re rod kcl6' 
Eftpaiovs EvayyeXlov fcai rod %vpca/cov.) This Hegesippus, 
whose writings are lost, but who had narrated in five books the 
history of the Church, under the title of " A Commentary on the 
Acts of the Apostles," was, Eusebius tells us, nearly a contem- 
porary of the Apostles, (eVl rrjs 7rpa)Tr}$ rcov ' 'AttocttoXcov yevofjuevos 
$La$o)(f)s;) — "for he lived," says he,' "under Hadrian, (from 117 to 
138,) and also under Anicetus, (from 157 to 168.)" Accordingly, 
Jerome, in his " List of Ecclesiastical Writers/' places him before 
Justin Martyr, who was born in 103, and died in 167. These 
facts prove the high antiquity of the Peshito version. 

Various other circumstances furnish additional evidence on the 
same point. 'The Syrian Christians, from the earliest period to 
the present time, have, with one accord, gone so far as to maintain 
that the Peshito was' the original of the New Testament. They 
found their assertion on the alleged fact, that their language was 
that of the apostles and the earliest Christians in Jerusalem, 
where congregations, on being formed, were distinguished into 



PESHITO. 



23 



Hellenic and Hebrew, (or Aramaean;) and that also of the churches 
founded among the Eastern Jews, especially in Babylonia and the 
Osroene territory, where a Syriac Old Testament had existed for 
centuries. All the fathers, as is well known, maintain that 
Matthew's Gospel was first published in Aramaean ; though it is 
more probable that Matthew put forth, at the same time, a two- 
fold original of his Gospel, the one in Greek, and the other in 
Aramaean. At least it is certain, that from the age of the apostles, 
wherever any one of the three Aramaean dialects was spoken, 
Aramaean versions of the various books of the New Testament 
were in circulation. 

Edessa, where Aramaean literature had long been cultivated with 
great ardour, and where the apostle Thaddaeus (as Eusebius in- 
forms 1 us) preached the Christian faith with so splendid success, 
is frequently mentioned as the place that gave birth to the Peshito. 
It had become, so early as the second century, the seat of an im- 
portant Christian school ; it was called " the holy city," on account 
of its unswerving zeal for the Christian faith ; and even Eusebius 
states, " that from the success of Thaddaeus, till the time at which 
he wrote, (324 — ei? en to vvv ef itcelvov,) the inhabitants of Edessa 
(77 iracra rcov 'ESeacrrjvcbv 7to\a?) had continued to shew their at- 
tachment to the name of Christ." 

What further serves to establish the venerable antiquity of this 
version is the fact of its being unanimously used by the various 
sects into which the Syrian Christians are divided — Nestorians, 
Jacobites, Komanists, all employ it in their respective services. 
Although, according to Wiseman, there are as many as twelve 
Syriac versions of the Old Testament, and three of the New, none 
of these has ever supplanted the Peshito in the services of the 
Church. It must, therefore, have been adopted universally before 
the appearance of these various sects. 

33. This version contains the whole of our canon, with the ex- 
ception merely of the Apocalypse and the four small and later 
epistles of Jude, Peter, and John. 

Such, then, was the canon of the Syrian churches at the begin- 
ning of the second century, or, rather, at the end of the first. 
" The Peshito/' says Adler, " is found, at the present day, under 

1 Hist. Eccl., ii., p. V. 



24 ANTE-NICENE CATALOGUES. 

two forms of manuscripts ; some in ancient Syriac characters, and 
others (of Indian origin) in Nestorian characters. All these manu- 
scripts now exhibit the same canon." 

34. Two circumstances connected with these manuscripts are 
very important : — 

(1.) The absence of every non-canonical book, though in the 
East, from the commencement of the second century, many such 
began to be published under false apostolic titles. 

(2.) The arrangement of the sacred books is in all of them the 
same as that of the best and most ancient Greek manuscripts. 
First we have the four Gospels, according to their invariable order, 
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John ; then the Acts of the Apostles ; 
then the Catholic epistles ; and, lastly, the fourteen epistles of 
Paul, in the usual order, Eomans, Corinthians (1, 2), Galatians, 
Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians (1, 2), Timotheus 
(1, 2), Titus, Philemon, Hebrews.* 

35. We can easily understand why the two small epistles of 
John, written at so late a date, and at so great a distance from 
Babylonia, should not be comprehended in the Peshito. In regard 
to the Apocalypse, it could not, as we shall afterwards see, form a 
part of it, as it was published at Ephesus, on the shores of the 
iEgean, about the end of the first century, or beginning of the 
second, that is, after the Peshito, or, at least, very shortly before 
that version was published in the East. John did not see his 
visions in Patmos till about the end of the reign of Domitian, as 
Irenaeus so distinctly informs us ; so that, at the earliest reckon- 
ing, the publication of the Apocalypse could only have taken place 
during the last four years of the first century, or the commence- 
ment of the second. What proves very clearly that the absence of 
the Apocalypse in the Peshito is owing solely to the earlier publica- 
tion of the latter, is the fact that the Syrian churches, far from re- 
jecting it, when it afterwards reached them, quoted it as a book 
of Divine authority. Dr Thiersch, who considers the Peshito pos- 

1 This connects it with the Greek Testament. In the Latin versions anterior 
to Jerome, who brought back to the original Greek standard the Western texts, 
the order of the four Gospels had been transposed, as may still be seen in the 
Codex Bezse at Cambridge. In his preface to Pope Damasus, Jerome shews to 
what extent in his time the alterations had been carried in the Latin copies of 
the Gospels. See Berger de Xivrey, " Etudes sur le Texte du N". T.," Paris, 1856. 



OEIGEN. 



25 



terior in date to the publication of the Apocalypse, is convinced 
that version originally contained this sacred book. " We cannot," 
says he, " have any doubt on this point, after the researches of 
Hug. Otherwise, how could Ephrem have had a Syriac Apoca- 
lypse? It must, further, be remarked, that if the Peshito did 
not contain the Apocalypse, it contained the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
and the Epistle of James ; as these two epistles, though late and 
almost posthumous, must have been both published before the mar- 
tyrdom of Paul ; and would, naturally, be more quickly received by 
the Syrian churches, to which they were directly communicated, 
than by the churches of the Gentiles. 

36. Erom these facts it follows, that this most ancient of all 
existing catalogues of the New Testament scriptures, — this docu- 
ment which so nearly reaches the days of the apostles, that it seems 
contemporaneous with the last years of John, — warrants our divid- 
ing the canon of New Testament scriptures into two or into three 
parts ; the first containing the twenty books always and every- 
where received by every section of the Christian Church ; the 
second, two books never controverted by the Aramaean-speaking 
Christians in Palestine, Syria, the Adiabene, Mesopotamia, the 
Osroene ; the third, five other books, whose title to rank in the 
list of the oracles of God was not yet admitted by the Aramaean 
churches during the early part of the second century. 

Section Thied. 
oeigen's catalogue. 

37. Passing from the commencement of the second century to 
the commencement of the third, we come to a period in the Church's 
history rendered illustrious by the great teachers then raised up 
almost simultaneously, in provinces of the empire the most remote 
from each other : Tertullian in Africa ; Irenceus in Gaul ; Hip- 
polytus in Arabia and at Rome ; Clement, who closed his career 
in Egypt when Origen was there beginning his ; and soon after- 
wards, Gregory in the kingdom of Pontus, and Cyprian at Car- 
thage. This remarkable period supplies us with a second catalogue, 
and that from the hands of the great Origen. 

Before examining its contents, it is important to point out the 
high value of Origen's testimony in reference to the canon of Scrip- 



26 



ANTE-NICENE CATALOGUES. 



ture, derived from the character, piety, erudition, and prodigious 
labours of that extraordinary man. 

38. Origen, in spite of certain doctrinal errors into which his 
piety was drawn by his genius, was one of the greatest luminaries 
of Christian antiquity, from his marvellous erudition, his skill in 
the sacred languages, his veneration for the Scriptures, his inde- 
fatigable ardour in Biblical researches, his perspicuity in expound- 
ing Holy Writ, as well as from the uniform purity of his life, his 
faithfulness in confessing Jesus Christ, and his holy firmness amid 
persecution. Though his doctrinal views on some points are of in- 
ferior value, his historical and literary testimony is of the greatest 
weight on the present question. His labours, in fact, were Hercu- 
lean. No teacher ever made equal exertions for the collation, expo- 
sition, and circulation of the Holy Scriptures. Born in 185, he was 
martyred at the age of sixty-eight, in 253. He was distinguished 
for his attainments when hardly eighteen years old. Becoming an 
instructor of the catechumens at Alexandria, he was soon after- 
wards, in spite of his youth, appointed successor to his master, the 
famous Clement of Alexandria, in the catechetical chair of that 
city. Such was the renown he speedily acquired by his lectures, 
that the most illustrious of the heathens flocked to hear him ; and 
the emperor Alexander, pagan as he was, and his mother Mammsea, 
being in Syria, and eager to have the privilege of hearing him, 
sent a military escort to conduct him from Antioch to Alexandria. 
At the age of eighteen he had visited Some ; and after his return 
to Alexandria commenced his vast labours on the Scriptures. He 
was, however, obliged to leave Egypt in the year 233, and take 
refuge, first at Csesarea in Palestine, and subsequently at Csesarea 
in Cappadocia. " So intense," says Eusebius, " was his unre- 
mitting ardour in Biblical researches, (roaavrrj twv Oelcov \6ycov 
airrjKpipcDixevr] i^eracr^,) that he was at pains to procure the 
most authentic (irpwTOTVTrovi) copies in the possession of Jews, 
as well as the editions of the Septuagint version, and of the trans- 
lations executed respectively by Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodo- 
tion. He determined to write commentaries on the whole scrip- 
tures of the Old and New Testaments." Epiphanius, Eusebius, 
and Jerome inform us, that he actually did write commentaries on 
all the books of Scripture. " He had always short-hand writers, 



OEIGEN. 



27 



(ra-^vypd<poL,) to the number of seven, within his call, when he 
was dictating ; he relieved them, one after the other, at stated in- 
tervals. He had also, at the same time, an equal number of copy- 
ists, (j3i/3\ioypd(poL,) as well as young persons of the female sex, 
skilled in caligraphy, who wrote under his direction. The piety 
of a friend, converted through his instrumentality, supplied all the 
necessary funds, and enabled him to devote himself with inex- 
pressible zeal to the study of the Divine oracles, and the com- 
position of his commentaries." 

The amount of his labours on the Scriptures seems more than 
human ; and it was not without reason that antiquity called him, 
" the man with bowels of brass/' and " the man of adamant," 
(^aXK6VT€po<; — adamantius.) Thus, though even in the time of 
Eusebius, only a hundred years after his death, a great portion of 
his works were already lost, and though many portions more have 
perished since the age of Eusebius, the collection, published by 
Huet,l of his exegetical writings still extant, consists of two folio 
volumes ; while the whole of his extant works, edited by Delarue, 2 
consist of four folio volumes. Without referring either to his 
famous Hexapla, or to his immense labours on the Old Testa- 
ment, we may convey some notion of his labours on the New, 
by repeating, after Eusebius and Cave, the list merely of his Exe- 
getical Works, (i^r/ynTL/ccov,) of his Scholia, (or collections of brief 
notes,) and of his Homilies, (or more popular tracts,) on record. 

On the Gospel of John, a commentary in thirty- two volumes, 
the earlier written in the year 222, and the later in 237 ; besides 
a large number of homilies, of which there remain only two. 

On Matthew, in 24)4, a commentary in twenty-five books, be- 
sides scholia, and numerous homilies. 

On Mark, dissertations, of which he himself speaks elsewhere, 
but which have been all lost. 

On Luke, five volumes, besides thirty-nine* homilies, which 
Jerome has preserved in Latin. 

On the Acts, homilies. 

On the Epistle to the Romans, a commentary in twenty 
volumes, part of which Faifh'nus has preserved to us in his Latin 
translation. 

1 Rouen, 1G68, with a Latin translation. 2 Paris, 1759. 



28 



ANTE-NICENE CATALOGUES. 



On the First Epistle to the Corinthians, and on the Epistles to 
the Ephesians and to the Golossians, a commentary in several 
books. 

On the Epistle to the Galatians, five volumes, besides disserta- 
tions and scholia. 

On the Eirst Epistle to the Thesscdonians, and on the Epistle to 
Titus, exegetical discourses, of which Jerome and Pamphylus have 
preserved to us a portion. 

On the Epistle to the Hebrews, a commentary, homilies, and 
exegetical discourses. 

Lastly, on the Apocalypse, an exposition, which he himself 
mentions in his thirtieth dissertation on Matthew, but of which 
no other trace is known to exist. 

To justify the importance we attach to Origen's testimony in 
the history of the canon, it would be necessary to enter into 
details to shew, from the labours of one man, with what ardour, 
at so early a period as a century after the death of John, the 
churches studied the scriptures of the New Testament ; it would 
be necessary to convey an adequate idea of the immensity of the 
Biblical labours of this great man, achieved 103 years before the 
Council of Nice. 

39. Origen furnishes us with two catalogues of the books that 
were regarded in his time as canonical The first of these cata- 
logues is directly given us in the eighth of his homilies, on the 
book of Joshua, (as preserved to us in the Latin translation by 
Kuffinus;) the other is derived from references and quotations 
contained in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, a work 100 
years after the time of Origen. 1 

40. We shall first examine the direct testimony of Origen, ex- 
pressed incidentally in his commentary on the book of Joshua. 
It will be seen that he there gives our present canon entire, with- 
out the omission or addition of a single book. 

Alluding to the trumpets, at the sound of which the walls of 
Jericho fell, he says : — " When our Lord Jesus Christ came in the 
flesh, (He whose advent Jesus the son of Nun prefigured,) He made 
His apostles walk as priests, bearing the trumpets of the grand 
and heavenly doctrine of the preached word. It was Matthew 

1 Hist. EccL, book vi., 25. 



OPJGEK 



29 



who, in his Gospel, first sounded the sacerdotal clarion. Then 
Mark, then Luke, then John, each in succession blew his trumpet. 
After them Peter bursts forth with the two trumpets of his epis- 
tles, (Petrus etiam duabus epistolarum suarum personat tubis.) 
Then comes James, and then Jude. Then comes John, to send 
forth, in addition to his previous blasts, fresh sounds of his trum- 
pet by his epistles and Apocalypse (addit nihilominus atque et 
Joannes tuba canere per epistolas suas et Apocalypsin ;) and so 
also does Luke, in putting forth his Acts of the Apostles. Last 
comes, in his turn, he who said, (1 Cor. iv. 9,) ' 1 think that God 
hath set forth us the apostles last! When he awoke the thunders 
of his trumpets by his fourteen epistles, {et in quatuordecim epis- 
tolarum suarum cuhninans tubis,) he overturned from their very 
foundations the walls of Jericho, — all the war-engines of idolatry, 
all the tenets of false philosophy/'' 

This direct testimony of Origen comprehends, as we have seen, 
all the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, without except- 
ing even one ; but his evidence is, notwithstanding, by no means 
at variance with the historical distinction we have adopted in 
reference to certain books of the canon. All these books, as we 
have stated after Eusebius, were received by most people, (tt\€l(ttoi<;.) 
All of them, as we have just seen, were received by Origen. 
The twenty books of the first canon had never been called in 
question in the churches of God, as they have never been since 
that time. Neither do the two books of our second-first canon 
appear to have been called in question during the early part of 
the century, at the commencement of Origen's literary career. 
They were now soon to be attacked, the one in the East and the 
other in the West ; and we shall perceive in the second form of 
Origen's testimony, which has been preserved to us, that though he 
himself received the Second Epistle of Peter, and the two brief 
epistles of John, some of his contemporaries, however, for some 
time hesitated to admit their Divine authority. 

41. The second form of Origen's testimony is as follows : — It is 
not presented to us directly by that great man himself, but by Euse- 
bius, who (in the fourth book of his "Ecclesiastical History," ch. 
xxv.,) states that he took it from the works of Origen, specifying 
the first of his books on the Gospel of Matthew, the fifth book of 



30 ANTE-NICENE CATALOGUES. 

his exegetical discourses on the Gospel of John, and one of his 
homilies on the Epistle to the Hebrews. 

" Origen," he says, " faithful to the canon of the Church, (tov 
ifCfcXrjcriao-Tifcbv cfrvXarTcov /cavova,) testifies that there are only 
four Gospels. He says : ' This I have received from tradition re- 
garding the four Gospels, which alone have been universally and 
unanimously recognised in the Church of God all over the earth/" 
(a /cat fiova dvavTippnTa iariv iv rfj viro tov ovpavov i/c/c\r)o~La tov 
Oeov.) Then, after speaking of these Gospels, he carefully distin- 
guishes the First Epistle of Peter, asuncontroverted, (opLoXoyov/mevnv,) 
from the second, in regard to which some entertained doubts, (io-Tiv 
teal SevTepav dpL(f>i/3dW€Tai yap,) 1 though he himself still main- 
tained the canonicity of all the books of Scripture. In the same 
way he is at pains to state, respecting the two brief epistles of 
John, that all do not regard them as genuine, (eVel ov irdvTe^ (paal 
<yvr)o-lov$ elvat.) 

As to the Apocalypse, it was, in Origen's time, still uncontro- 
verted ; and in mentioning it he makes no allusion to its having 
been ever called in question. In regard to the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, he gives no intimation that anybody doubted its canon- 
icity ; he merely remarks that, owing to the elegance of its style, 
some doubted, not its canonicity, (this is specially deserving of 
attention,) but its being a production of Pauls. He does not ex- 
press on this point any decided opinion of his own, but he is at 
pains to add, that " if any church receives it as an epistle of Paul, 
it ought to be held in honour even on that very account, (avTrj 
ev^oKLpbeiaOco koX eirl tovtw •) for it was not on light grounds (pv 
yap eLKrj) that the early Church had handed it down as a produc- 
tion of Paul s, (ol dpyaloi avhpes a>? Uavkov avrrjv TrapaSeScbKaai.)" 

42. It thus distinctly follows from the indirect as well as from 
the direct testimony of Origen, that our historical division of the 
canon is duly warranted. 

We again briefly review Origen's testimony : — 

(1.) That great man received the canon exactly as we have it at 
the present day. 

(2.) All the churches continued unanimously to receive, as at 
all times, the twenty books of the first canon. 

1 See on this our 341st and following propp. 



EUSEBIUS. 



31 



(3.) They still received, likewise, the two books of the second- 
first canon. 

(4.) Some doubted the canonicity of the Second Epistle of Peter 
and of the two brief epistles of John. 

(5.) Origen, according to Eusebius, makes no mention of any 
opposition made, in his time, to the Epistle of James, or to that of 
Jude. Neither does he expressly say, indeed, that he himself ad- 
mitted the divine authority of these epistles ; but this is a mani- 
fest inadvertence of Eusebius, as Origen, in different parts of his 
works, mentions the Epistle of Jude more than fifteen times, and 
distinctly calls it a divine Scripture. 1 

(6.) Lastly, some, on account of the elegancy of the style, 
doubted Paul's authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews ; its canon- 
icity had never yet been called in question. 

Section Foueth. 
the catalogue of eusebius. 

43. As the "Ecclesiastical History" of Eusebius, published in 
the early part of the fourth century, and before the Council of 
Nice, is going to furnish us with our third catalogue of the books 
of the New Testament, we think it indispensable to review, with 
attention, the life and merits of its author. 

This illustrious bishop has been justly styled the "father or 
founder of ecclesiastical history." He is not only the most ancient, 
but the only historian of the primitive Church. The work of 
Hegesippus, a hundred years earlier, consists merely of detached 
narratives, (jiepitcas Srjyrjaeis,) 2 recording the more or less uncertain 
traditions of apostolic days. Eusebius, on the contrary, collecting 
all the documents of the preceding ages, and consulting innumer- 
able writings, had determined to exhibit, in ten books, a consecu- 
tive view of the labours, sufferings, and successes of the Church, 
from the days of Jesus Christ to the fall of Licinius, in 324. He 
made a special point to give, as he proceeded, a particular account 
of the writings (now lost) of the Church's early teachers. Valc- 
sius, (Henri de Valois,) in the preface to his beautiful edition of 

1 See Book iv. of this work. art. on Judo, prop. 385. 

2 This is the expression of Eusebius, (EceL Hist., book i., chap, i.) 



32 



ANTE-NICENE CATALOGUES. 



the principal ancient ecclesiastical historians, remarks that none 
of the ecclesiastical historians whom his example raised up has 
entered on the field he had gone over, but, on the contrary, all of 
them, by commencing their narratives at the point where he had 
closed his, appear to have wished to leave entire the glory his work 
had acquired. 

Accordingly, the ten books of Eusebius will ever remain the 
great repertory where ecclesiastical writers will go to find what- 
ever is known, in connexion with their subject, regarding the first 
three centuries ; and whoever would obtain from this source an 
accurate account of the early vicissitudes of the Church, or of the 
history of the canon, must have Eusebius lying constantly on his 
table. Had the work of Eusebius been lost, like so many 
others, our means of becoming acquainted with Christian anti- 
quities, though, as it is, far from ample, would have been 
limited in the extreme ; a circumstance, to which we shall have 
occasion to revert, being the scantiness of authentic documents 
relating to the apostolic age and the first half of the second cen- 
tury. After setting aside, as is necessary to do, the Pastor of 
Hermas, the Apostolic Constitutions, and the spurious Epistles of 
Barnabas, of Ignatius, and of Clement, very little indeed remains. 
The whole amount consists of five or six authentic epistles of 
Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp, with accounts of their martyr- 
dom, and the beautiful anonymous letter addressed to Diog- 
netus. 

Many other works of Eusebius, written, for the most part, 
before his "Ecclesiastical History/' are still extant. There are 
his " Evangelical Preparation," in fifteen books, written in the 
year 315 ; his " Evangelical Demonstration," in twenty books, (of 
which there remain only ten,) written about the same period ; 
his valuable " Chronicle," the original of which is lost, but an 
Armenian version of which was discovered during the last cen- 
tury ; his " Defence of Origen ; " his " Life (or Panegyric) of Con- 
stantine ; " his " History of the Martyrs of Palestine ; " and a 
commentary on various parts of Scripture. The most important, 
however, of all his writings will always be his "Ecclesiastical 
History." No man could have been better qualified than this 
learned bishop for such an undertaking. Born about the year 



ETJSEBIUS. 



33 



270, he became in 315 bishop of that Csesarea in Palestine where 
his accomplished friend Pamphilus, successor to Origen, had 
taught, and where he had recently been martyred. Eusebius, both 
a scholar and a courtier, was highly esteemed by the Emperor Con- 
stantine, who frequently invited him to the imperial table, as well 
as did him the honour of becoming his epistolary correspondent. 
Eusebius had access to the state archives, as well as to the rich 
libraries established at Csesarea by Pamphilus, and at Jerusalem by 
the bishop Alexander. All those works, now lost to our scholars, 
are only known to them by the fragments quoted by Eusebius. The 
important writings of Aristion, Quadrat us, Aristides, Hegesippus, 
Papias, Meliton, Apollonius, had all passed through his hands, 
so that his decisions respecting the Scriptures were formed with 
the aid of sources no longer in existence. Eusebius, moreover, 
by his brilliant endowments, as well as by his rank, exercised a 
high influence in the Church. He had even been offered the 
Patriarchate of Antioch, which he had the wisdom to decline. In 
the famous Council of Nice, we find him on the right of Constan- 
tino's golden throne, and occupying the first place among the 
bishops. Many of the letters that prince addressed to him are 
still extant ; and there is one among them we cannot refrain from 
quoting, as it relates to the canon. " Dear brother," CA$e\(j)e 
aycnrrjTe,) said the emperor, " I intrust to your prudence the task 
of having fifty copies (aco/jbdria) of the divine Scriptures (t&p 
Oelcav hrjkahi-) ypa<fiooi>) copied on precious parchment, and in the 
way you may deem best fitted for the use of the Church and 
the solemn lessons from the Divine word, (jrapa rr}^ roov Oelcov 
dvayvcoo-fjLdrwv iirio-Kevrjs.) You will employ for this purpose 
persons the most skilled in the art of caligraphy ; and, to accel- 
erate the work, letters of our clemency have been addressed to 
the government treasurer, and two public carriages have been put 
at your disposal." 

If, by one of those unforeseen occurrences that Divine Goodness 
from time to time accords to the Church, one of these manuscripts, 
more ancient than any at present known, were suddenly brought 
to light, as were but of late the palaces of Nineveh, or the papyri 
in the Egyptian tombs, how precious a prize to sacred literature 
would the relic prove ! 

c 



34 



ANTE-NICENE CATALOGUES. 



Eusebius, then, viewed as a witness who lived at the end of the 
third century and the beginning of the fourth, possesses all the 
literary qualifications we could desire ; but, before we begin to 
examine him, we must remember that in other respects his senti- 
ments and character are not always so worthy of confidence as 
his learning. 

As to his literary attainments, they are freely acknowledged, even 
by his most severe detractors. 1 J erome calls him a man of great 
learning, (yir doctissimus ;) 2 but he immediately adds, " I do 
not, however, say he was sound in the catholic faith, though very 
learned," (doctissimum; dixi, non catholicum.) " Whom could you 
find/' he says further, " more intelligent, more learned, more elo- 
quent, than Eusebius, that abettor of Origen % " 3 " We admit his 
erudition/' {irdXvjJbaOlav^) says Antipater of Botsra ; "but we com- 
bat his doctrinal views/' 4 " If," says Scaliger, " by learned is to 
be understood one who has read a great deal, we cannot refuse to 
Eusebius that appellation ; but if true learning implies judgment, 
combined with an extensive knowledge of books, we must reserve 
the title for others." " That he was most extensively acquainted 
with books," (woXvLa-Tcop,) says Antipater, elsewhere, " and familiar 
with everything in the whole range of ancient literature, I most 
readily grant ; for, having imperial resources at his command, it 
was easy for him to procure whatever he required." 

It is, therefore, of the utmost importance that, while we place 
the fullest reliance in Eusebius's erudition, we should regard his 
judgment and religious character with more reserve. 5 During 
imperial persecutions some doubts had been entertained regarding 
the stability of his faith. The times were evil; and the philo- 
sophy of the latter half of the third century had cast a shade over 
his belief, as it had over that of so many others, and prepared 
followers for the impious views of Arius. This heresiarch, who 
was born about the same time as Eusebius, (270,) had been 
spreading his poison since the year 81 2 • and had found among 

1 See Valesius, " Veterum Testimonia," under the head " Eusebius." 

2 Book ii., against Rufinus. 

3 Ep. 65. 

4 Book i., in reply to Eusebius's " Defence of Origen." 

5 "We shall afterwards have to complain of the prejudiced manner in which he 
speaks of J ude and the Apocalypse. 



EUSEBIUS. 



35 



the bishops of the time a host of accomplices. Eusebius was one 
of them. He publicly defended the Arian cause against the 
bishop of Alexandria, and even became, subsequently, one of 
Athanasius's persecutors. When, at the Council of Tyre, (in 335,) 
the bishop Potamon, who had had one of his eyes torn out for the 
faith, saw him take his seat as one of the judges of that great 
servant of God, he was unable to restrain his indignation. " Is it 
fitting in you, Eusebius," he exclaimed, while bursting into tears, 
" to sit there to judge the innocent Athanasius ? Who could en- 
dure such a sight ? Tell me, were we not both thrown into prison 
during the persecution ? How did it happen that you came out 
of it safe and sound, whilst I lost an eye for maintaining the 
truth, unless it was that you sacrificed to idols, or promised to 
do so?" 

The manner in which Eusebius expressed himself on doctrinal 
points became, it is true, very different after the Council of Nice ; 
but the times were changed. " Doubts were entertained regard- 
ing his sincerity," says the historian Socrates. 1 Accordingly he 
was called the " double-tongued" (SlyXwaaos;) — as he had never 
ceased to shew himself a friend to the Arians and an enemy to 
the orthodox. 

Whatever may have been his real convictions, his work will 
always be of inestimable value to the history of the canon. We 
even think that his bias against certain doctrines, and the philo- 
sophic and latitudinarian turn of his mind, in making him lean 
to the merely human side of the question, render him, perhaps, 
a witness of greater weight in any inquiry like the present, as has 
been said of the historian Josephus, and of the historian Gibbon, 
respecting the fulfilment of prophecy. 

44?. Eusebius, in the twenty-fifth chapter of the third book 
of his history, states with great precision what, according to him, 
was the opinion of all ancient ecclesiastical writers as to the canon. 
To give more precision to his statement, he divides the Scriptures 
into books recognised and books controverted — (into ofjioXoyov/neva, 
and avri\(r/6fieva.) As, however, the invaluable chapter td which 
we refer is the starting-point of nearly all the works that have 

1 Hist. Eccl., book i., chap. 23. 



36 



ANTE-NICENE CATALOGUES. 



been written on the canon, it is of importance that, before pro- 
ceeding further, we should distinctly explain what Eusebius exactly 
means by these two expressions. 

Were we to attend merely to the etymology and ordinary use 
of the words, we might imagine that by opboXoyovpueva, Eusebius 
wishes to denote books recognised in some portion or other of the 
churches of God ; and that by avTiXeyopieva, he wishes to express 
simply books not recognised. This, however, is not his meaning. 
He employs these distinctive terms without any reference to the 
extent, more or less universal, of the recognition of these sacred 
books by the churches of God. 

Accordingly, in the mouth of Eusebius, the ofioXoyovfjueva are 
" the Scriptures universally, unrestrictedly, and uniformly recog- 
nised from the first as Divine by all churches and all ecclesiastical 
writers." It is in this sense, also, that he is to be understood as 
employing the expression, ratified or sanctioned books, (/cvpcoreov,) 
— catholic or universal books — testamental, (ivfadOrjfca,) contained 
in the collection forming the New Testament — uncontroverted, 
(avajx^lXeKra,) — unquestioned, (avavrlppyra.) 

On the other hand, controverted books (avTiXeyofjueva) far from 
signifying, in the phraseology of Eusebius, books not recognised, 
(as the etymology might seem to indicate,) denote books which, 
though recognised by most churches, (yvcopLficov 6° ovv o^m to?? 
7t6XXol?,) though recognised also by most ecclesiastical writers, 
(ojjlcos he irapa irXe[(TTOi<$ tcov i/cfcXvcriacrTiKcbv yiyvwaKoybkvoi^ 
were not recognised by all churches, and by all ecclesiastical 
writers ; or, at least, were not universally recognised without cer- 
tain restrictions or some hesitation. 

45. Those books of Holy Scripture which Eusebius places in 
the first of these divisions, that is, among the o/moXoyov/jLeva, 
" because/' as he says, " all ancient teachers and the ancient 
churches had uniformily regarded them as divine," are not 
merely the twenty books that form our first canon, but also the 
two books which constitute our second-first canon ; so that, ac- 
cording to Eusebius rightly understood, the class of opboXoyovfieva 
comprehends the thirty-five thirty-sixths of the New Testament. 

The reader will naturally desire to have in view the precise 
expressions used by Eusebius. The chapter to which we now 



EUSEBIUS. 



37 



refer, is entitled, " Of the Divine scriptures ivhich are uncontro- 
verted, (o/ioXoyov/jLeva,) and of those luhich are not" He begins 
by saying, " It is proper here to recapitulate what we have stated 
regarding the books of the New Testament. We must place first 
the holy quaternion of the Gospels, (rrjv aylav twv evayye\lcov 
rerpa/crvv,) and after them the Acts of the Apostles. After this 
last must be inserted in the list the Epistles of Paid; then that 
Epistle of John which is called the first, (rrjv fepo/jbevvv 'Icodvvov 
irporepav) and we must, in like manner, admit as divine the 
Epistle of Peter, (teal o/jLoicos ryv Uerpov fevpeoreov iirta-roX^v.) 
Then should be inserted, if thought proper, the Apocalypse of 
John (iirl tovtov rafcreov, el ye (pavely, rrjv airoKakv^iv 'Icodvvovj 
about which we shall, in due order, state our opinion." " These, 
then, are the uncontroverted books, (teal raura {ilv ev 6[Mo\oyov- 

46. The scriptures which Eusebius ranks in the second class, 
that of avTi\er{o\±eva, are the five brief and late epistles — the 
Second of Peter, those of James and Jude, and the last two of 
John. " These scriptures which have been controverted," says he, 
" though received by most people, and recognised by most eccle- 
siastical writers, (6/Wa)? Be irapa TrkeiaroLS rwv eKKkr\<jia<jTiK(i>v 
yt^/vcoo-KOfieva^,) and publicly read, along with the other catholic 
epistles, in most churches, (p,era rcov Xolttcov ev Trketcnais 8e8w- 
fAoatevfievas i/ctc\ri<riai<},) have experienced some opposition, and 
are less quoted by ancient writers/' 

47- Apart from these twenty-seven books of the New Testa- 
ment, apart even from the controverted books, {avrCKeyofJieva) 
Eusebius classes those works which are to be rejected, and 
which he calls spurious, (y60a.) At the same time he distin- 
guished this third class into two sorts. The first comprehending 
such as were harmless, or even instructive, but had been impro- 
perly attributed to apostles, or companions of apostles, as the Acts 
of Paul, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Apocalypse of Peter, the 
Epistle of Barnabas, the Apostolic Constitutions. The second 
consisted of spurious (yoda) works that were heretical and mis- 
chievous, which he calls absurd and impious, {aroira kcli Sva- 
cepr}) — such as the gospels of Peter, Thomas, Matthias, the Acts 
of A ndrew, of John, and of other apostles. 



38 



ANTE-NICENE CATALOGUES. 



" We see/' says Dr Thiersch, 1 " by this minute distinction 
established by Eusebius, but which we could not have inferred 
either from the etymology of the terms or the tenor of the sub- 
ject, how clear and definite was the judgment of the Church at 
that time, as well as the judgment of Eusebius, regarding the 
limits of the canon — limits which afterwards became laws of the 
Church." 

48. Eusebius, inserting the Epistle to the Hebrews in the class 
of uncontr over ted books, though aware of certain doubts regarding 
it that had been raised at Eome ' so early as the time of Caius, 
that is, during the first half of the third century, (as we shall 
explain in the sequel,) did so because he knew that, from the 
days of the apostles, it had been uniformly received by all the 
Greek and Oriental churches. He is at pains to intimate that the 
fourteen epistles of Paul are well known and unquestionable, (Tov 
Be Uavkov irp6Bij\oi /cal <ra<fiei<; ai Be/car eacrapes) — but he 
adds, that it would not be right to overlook the fact that some 
persons (rive?) had rejected the Epistle to the Hebrews on the 
ground of the Eoman Church's having controverted Paul's author- 
ship of that epistle. The persons (rives) to whom Eusebius here 
alludes were evidently Greeks ; but neither their opinion nor even 
that of the Roman Church had exerted any influence on the 
churches of Greece and the East ; and the learned historian shews 
that, notwithstanding such doubts, the epistle was, in his estima- 
tion, clearly and unquestionably canonical. 

As to the Apocalypse, it may at first seem strange that he does 
not class it with the controverted books, (avnXeyo/Meva,) as he 
speaks of it as deemed by some of Divine authority, and by others 
spurious. But as the Apocalypse had never, till the time of 
Dionysius of Alexandria, (about the middle of the third century,) 
been controverted in the East, where, on the contrary, it had 
always been regarded as of Divine authority ; and as, on the other 
hand, Dionysius vehemently maintained that it was the work of 
an ordinary presbyter of the name of John, and, consequently, 
spurious ; the controversy being still at its height while Eusebius 
was writing his history, he could not, before the close of the dis- 

1 Versuch zur Vorstellung des hist. Standpuncts fur die Critic der N. T. 
Schr. 



EUSEBITTS. 



39 



cussion, place it among the avriXe^/ofieva. All parties agreed in 
excluding the Apocalypse from the class of avriXeyofjueva' but 
some insisted that it should be declared of Divine authority, while 
others maintained it should be pronounced spurious. 

The Apocalypse was uncontroverted during the second century, 
and even till the middle of the third, at which time the party 
spirit that characterised the philosophic theology of Alexandria, 
during its contest with the antique millenarian theory, ventured 
to call in question the authority of that book. This opposition 
produced hesitation in the minds of the Greek theologians. Euse- 
bius did not remain neutral in this doctrinal controversy ; but 
this did not prevent him from stating the historical points of the 
question with a faithfulness worthy of respect. 

49. We briefly sum up the substance of what we have said to 
account for Eusebius's having classed the Epistle to the Hebrews 
and the Apocalypse among the uncontroverted scriptures : — 

(1.) These two books had been from the first, and during two 
centuries, received as of Divine authority by all the churches, both 
of the East and of the West. 

(2.) Subsequently one of these books, the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
had been always received in the churches of the East, and the 
other, the Apocalypse, had always continued to be received in the 
churches of the West. 

(3.) When, afterwards, doubts were for a time raised against 
the Apocalypse in the East, and against the Epistle to the Hebrews 
in the West, no ancient testimony against either of these books was 
ever produced, and the only objections brought against them re- 
lated to alleged incongruities of doctrine and of style, as might be 
the case at the present day. 

We shall afterwards examine the subject of avrikeyofxeva more 
in detail ; our object at present being merely to describe the cata- 
logue of Eusebius. 

50. In taking this historian, then, as so many other writers have 
done, for our starting point in establishing the Divine canonicity 
of the whole New Testament, and in taking our stand with this 
learned bishop in the year 324, (six months before the Council of 
Nice,) we may say that we select the very moment in history when 
the objections brought against these two books had reached the 



ANTE-NICENE CATALOGUES. 



culminating point. It would be impossible, then, to give a more 
precise statement of these objections than we do in expressing 
them under this form. Our threefold division is more rigorous 
even than that of Eusebius ; for, instead of classing, as he does, 
the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse among the uncon- 
troverted books, we assign them a separate position, as they did 
not attain the rank of uncontroverted, in the unrestricted sense in 
which the term is employed by Eusebius, till the middle of the 
third century. In ascending beyond the time of Eusebius, we find 
the objections gradually diminishing towards this source, and in 
descending from his time we find them diminishing still more 
rapidly. The great Origen, who lived before him, received, as we 
have stated, the entire canon ; and never heard of any hesitation 
among his contemporaries except in reference to the eighty-ninth 
part of the New Testament. 1 The great Athanasius, only twenty- 
six years younger than Eusebius, received our canon entire, and, 
in concluding his list of New Testament scriptures, says, " These 
books are the fountains of salvation, (ravra nrrj^al rov acoTrjplov.) 
Let no one add to them anything, or take anything from them, 
(jiTjSei? tovtols eiri^aXKeTW, jJL7]he tovtcov a^aipelaOco t£)" 2 The 
famous Council of Laodicea, 3 held only twenty-nine years after 
that of Nice, received in its catalogue, without one exception, (as 
we shall by and by see,) all the five brief and late epistles which 
form our second canon. 4 

We have, then, fully demonstrated that our division of the 
twenty-seven books of the New Testament into three canons, his- 
torically distinct, responds to the most rigorous requirements of 
sacred criticism, and represents, with the strictest precision, the 
historical reception of the various books of which that part of 
Holy Scripture is composed : Twenty books universally, uniformly, 
and unanimously received from the commencement. Then, two 
books also received uniformly and universally from their appear- 

1 Eighty-nine verses (the Second Epistle of Peter and the last two epistles of 
John) out of 7959. 

2 In his Festal Epist. xxxix., vol. ii., p. 961. Edit. Bened. 

3 It represented the different provinces of Asia, and was ratified by the Fourth 
General Council of Constantinople, by the General Council oj Chalcedon, and by the 
imperial law of Justinian. The Code of the Church Universal fixes it in 364. 

4 See Canons lix. and lx. (prop. 88.) 



EUSEBIUS. 



41 



ance till the middle of the third century, at which time various 
objections in reference to them began to be raised in some churches, 
and for a century and a half ; yet these objections to their canoni- 
city were not historical, but merely critical. Lastly, five small 
epistles received by the great bulk of Christendom, though con- 
troverted in some churches till the Council of Nice. 



CHAPTER VIII 



OF THE COUNCIL OF NICE AND ITS RESULTS. 

51. The Ecumenical Council of Nice was unquestionably one of 
the most august assemblies on record. The world had never seen 
anything that could be compared to it. There, among the bishops, 
from all parts, of whom it was composed, and the elders or deacons 
who accompanied them, was to be found all that was most learned 
and most holy in the Church of God : Hosius, bishop of Cordova, 
an old man universally venerated, who had already presided in 
other synods, and who was the first that attached his signature 
to the acts of this : Eustathius, bishop of Antioch, who delivered 
the opening address : Alexander, the pious bishop of Alexandria, 
who had been the first to assail Arius, and who had brought with 
him to Nice the famous Athanasius, then a young deacon of 
Alexandria, about twenty-nine years of age : J ames, bishop of 
Nisibe in Mesopotamia: Alexander, bishop of Byzantium: Mar- 
cellus, bishop of Ancyra : Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem : Ceci- 
lianus, bishop of Carthage. Even the bishops of Persia, of Scythia, 
and of the country of the Goths, were to be seen there, as well as 
a great number of glorious confessors of Jesus Christ, who had 
endured imprisonment and torture during the previous persecu- 
tions ; three bishops of the name of Nicholas : Spyridion, bishop 
of Cyprus, an old man honoured by all : Paphnutius, whose right 
eye had been torn out, and his left hough mutilated with red-hot 
iron : Paul, of Neo-Csesarea on the Euphrates, who had lost both 
hands, which Licinius had caused to be burnt off. But, besides 
these steadfast adherents of the faith, the council counted a great 
number of members that were followers of Arius, but illustrious 
for their talents and erudition ; such as the two Eusebiuses, Maris 



OF THE COUNCIL OF NICE AND ITS RESULTS. 



43 



of Chalcedon, Paulinus of Tyre, Menophantes of Ephesus, Lucius, 
a Sarmatian bishop, and many others. The assembly was opened 
in the imperial palace on the 22d day of May 325, and lasted till 
the 25 th of August. 

Section Eikst. 

the council made no decree on the canon. 

52. People often speak of the canon of the New Testament as 
if the first general council, convoked by -Constantine to put an 
end to all differences that then disturbed the Church, had passed a 
decree fixing the list of 'sacred scriptures. There could not be a 
greater mistake. 

We find, it is true, " in that convocation of the whole Church," 
says Eusebius, " an assembly in which the most eminent servants 
of God from all the churches of Europe, Africa, and Asia, had 
met." They passed resolutions, indeed, on the disputes which 
then shook the Christian world in the East and in the West, and 
the Scriptures were often mentioned as a work common to the 
universal Church, but no disagreement on the subject of the canon 
was ever in question. Not one of the existing documents relating 
to this council makes the slightest mention of such a matter. 

The sacred volume of the Gospels was then placed on a large 
and lofty throne in the middle of the assembly, to intimate, as in 
all the earlier general councils, 1 that Scripture is the supreme 
rule in all controversies ; and Constantine the Great, in the speech 
he himself addressed to the assembled fathers, 2 reminded them 
that " they had the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in writing/' and 
that the books of the evangelists and the apostles, and the oracles 
of the prophets, teach us clearly and distinctly (<ra<£w?) what we 
are to believe concerning the things of God, and that differences 
of opinion which arise are to be settled according to the words 
of divine inspiration (itc rcov OeoTrvevo-rcov \6ycov Xdfico/juev rcov 

1 Le Sueur, Histoire de 1'EgL et de l'Erap., torn, ii., p. 454 ; torn, iv., pp. 275 
and 375 ; torn, vi., p. 220. 

a This circumstance is recorded of the Council of Chalcedon and of several 
others. I have not, however, been able to find in Eusebius, any more more than 
in Socrates, Sozomen, or Theodoret, the passage whence historians have derived it 
as far as relates to the Council of Nice. 



44 OF THE COUNCIL OF NICE AND ITS RESULTS. 

%r)Tovfiev(dv rrjv \vo-iv.)" Finally, the council, precisely in refer- 
ence to its formula of faith, (/juaOyfjuaro^,) " declared that its doctrine 
was entirely grounded on the divine Scriptures, (delcov ypa^cov,)" 
when, in the preamble suggested by Eusebius, it says, " As we 
have learned it from the Holy Scriptures, this is our creed : I be- 
lieve in one God, the Father Almighty," &c. Yet, we repeat, the 
council, amid all these declarations, nowhere indicated the slight- 
est intention of passing a decree respecting the catalogue of the 
sacred books of the New Testament. 

53. It is true that many Eomanist theologians, such as Bellar- 
min, 1 Baronius, 2 Catharin, 3 Binius, 4 constantly thinking of the 
authority of human tribunals in matters of faith, and of the too 
compromising case of the apocryphal books, have tried to pass off, 
on this point, some rash assertions. Notwithstanding the silence 
of antiquity, and in defiance of all existing documents relating to 
the assembly at Nice, they pretend to infer from an expression of 
Jerome's, that the council had passed a decree fixing the canon. 
Jerome, indeed, earnestly urged by several persons to write a com- 
mentary on the history of Judith (the canonicity of which he dis- 
tinctly denied), says, " that he had somewhere read that the 
Council of Nice had reckoned it among the Holy Scriptures/' 5 
It is easy, however, to demonstrate that this inference is utterly 
unwarranted. For, — 

(I.) No ancient ecclesiastical writer ever referred to any deci- 
sion of the Council of Nice on the canon of Scripture. 

(2.) The acts of the council do not contain a single word relat- 
ing to such pretended decision. 

(3.) Jerome himself states very distinctly that the book of 
Judith is not canonical ; and even in that " Preface" from which 
Eomanists pretend to derive their argument in its favour, he is at 
pains to state that " the Hebrews class Judith among those books 
which cannot be adduced as authority in determining controverted 
doctrines." Again, in his "Prologus Galeatus," he says, "that 
book is not in the canon ; n and in his commentary on the books 

1 " De Verbo Dei," lib. i., cap. 10. 

2 " Annates," torn, iii., § 137. 3 " In Cajetan." 

4 Notes on the Council of Laodicea. 

5 Cujus auctoritas ad roboranda ilia quce in contentionem veniunt minus idonea 
judicatur. 



OF THE COUNCIL OF NICE AND ITS EESULTS. 



45 



of Solomon, " The Church, it is true, allows it to be read, but does 
not receive it as one of the canonical scriptures/' 1 

(4.) Roman theologians are so well aware of the import of 
Jerome's opinion on this point that they decline it in all discus- 
sions about the Apocrypha. 

(5.) Jerome, in the passage in question, does not say that the 
Council of Nice had received the book of Judith as canonical, but 
that "certain persons asserted it had/' He says merely, Legitur. 
Perhaps some bishop at Nice had quoted some passage of the 
book ; but that would not have proved that the council regarded 
the book as canonical, and much less does it show that the coun- 
cil passed any decree concerning the canon. 

(6.) If the Council of Nice had received that history of Judith 
as canonical, how could it have happened that the Council of 
Laodicea, held forty years afterwards, and sanctioned by the 
General Council of Chalcedon, excluded it from the canon ? How 
could Eusebius and A thanasius, both present and both powerful 
in the council, and how could Hilarius, who suffered exile for 
defending its decrees, have all denied its canonicity ? How, also, 
could Basil the Great, how could Gregory of Nazianzus, how 
could Amphilochius, all three living nearer the time of the council 
than Jerome, have, in like manner, omitted it in their catalogue 
of inspired books ? 

Section Second. 

from the date of the council all disagreement regarding 
the controverted books ceased in all the churches of 
christendom. 

54. Whatever, through the providence of God, (as we shall 
afterwards demonstrate,) may have been the reserve of the coun- 
cils in reference to the canon, — a reserve the more striking, as it 
was entirely unintentional, — it is an unquestionable fact that, 
within a very short space of time after that solemn assembly of 
Nice, a remarkable change took place in public opinion, which 
had been hitherto undecided regarding some of the avTLXeyo/LLeva. 
All hesitation forthwith disappeared in one place after another, 

1 Sed eum inter canonicas scripturas non recipit. 



4(3 



OF THE COUNCIL OF NICE AND ITS RESULTS. 



till all the churches of Christ throughout the world exhibited that 
perfect unanimity which, amid every diversity of race and of lan- 
guage, has continued to exist for fifteen hundred years. The 
council, there can be no doubt, powerfully, though indirectly, con- 
tributed to that important result. Having united in the closest 
intercourse, for the space of three months, the most illustrious and 
the most enlightened representatives of Christianity, the council 
afforded them an opportunity of interchanging their views, and 
comparing their documents, and of thus laying aside all unfounded 
prejudices, and of becoming unanimously agreed. 

It will, therefore, be proper to prove, by quotations, this rapid 
change in public opinion. We shall not, however, extend the 
inquiry beyond the fourth century ; as, from that period to the 
present day, the testimonies are so continuous and so abundant 
as not to require either to be quoted or enumerated 



CHAPTER IX 



THE ELEVEN AUTHENTIC CATALOGUES OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 

55. The fathers and the councils of the fourth century have left 
us no fewer than eleven catalogues of the sacred books, without 
counting that of Eusebius. 

Section First. 

unanimity of all the catalogues as to the first canon, 
the second canon, and the epistle to the hebrews. 

56. All these eleven catalogues, without exception, unanimously 
recognise as canonical, not only the twenty books that form our 
first canon, but also the Epistle to the Hebrews, and all the five 
books that Eusebius calls avrikeyo/jLeva, and that form our second 
canon. 

Accordingly, from the date of the Council of Nice, all difference 
of opinion, at least in the catalogues of the age, everywhere disap- 
peared regarding both the two canons and the Epistle to the 
Hebrews. 

Section Second, 
catalogues of the fathers and catalogues of the councils. 

57. Of these eleven authentic catalogues of the fourth century, 
nine have been left us by the fathers and two by the councils. 

It will be necessary to give a detailed account of both these 
classes of catalogues, and this we shall do in the next two chapters. 



CHAPTER X. 



the nine catalogues of the fourth centuey 
given by the fathers. 

Section First. 

only three of them omit the apocalypse. 

58. Of these nine catalogues left us by the fathers of the fourth 
century, there are three — those of Cyril, Gregory the Divine, and 
Philastrius — which, while agreeing entirely on every other point 
with the canon of our churches, make as yet no mention of the 
Apocalypse, or state, as Amphilochius does, that many still enter- 
tain doubts regarding it. 

"Notwithstanding the entire agreement of the churches after 
the Council of Nice/' says Hug, (in his " Introduction,") " the 
doctrinal discussions against the ' millenarians ' had been too keen 
in certain parts, and were still too recent to permit that book's 
general and unanimous restoration to its place in the canon." 

59. The first of these three catalogues is that of Cyril, who is 
regarded by the Greek Church as one of her principal saints, and 
who was patriarch of Jerusalem twenty-four years after the Coun- 
cil of Nice. He died so late as 386 ; but before being raised to 
that important see, he had exercised, in Jerusalem itself, 1 the 
functions of a pastor and catechist. His works consist almost ex- 
clusively of eighteen Catecheses, (or didactic lectures,) addressed to 
catechumens on the principal points of Christian doctrine ; and of 
five Catecheses, styled Mystagogical, addressed to communicants on 
the two sacraments of the Church. " They were extemporaneous, 

1 He informs us he continued to catechise in 347. See his sixth Catechesis; or 
Cave, (Hist. Litt., vol. i., p. 211.) 



CYRIL S CATALOGUE. 



49 



(<TX€$La<rOei<rai,) as he himself informs lis, and composed with great 
simplicity, in order to be intelligible to aU." 1 

His catalogue is contained in his fourth Catechesis, 2 under 
the title, " Of the Divine Scriptures," (Jlepl rcov Oeiwv Tpac^cov.) 

" This is what we are taught by the inspired scriptures of the 
Old and the New Testament ; for there is but one and the same God 
in both, who in the Old foretells God manifested in the New." 

" Learn, then, from the Church, with a sincere desire to be in- 
structed, (fyCkofiaOu)? 67TLyv(0(7K€ irapa t% e'/c/cX^cr/a?,) what are 
the books of the Old Testament, and what those of the New, and 

read nothing of what is apocryphal Eead {avayivtocrici) 

the Divine scriptures, the twenty-two books of the Old Testa- 
ment; 3 .... but have nothing to do with any book that is 
apocryphal. Study earnestly those books only (ravra? yuovas 
fieXera cnrovhalwi) which we read and recognise openly in the 
Church, (a? iv tt} eKKkr^aia fiera irapprjcrlas avayiyvcocrKO/jLev.) " 

" The apostles and the ancient bishops, those office-bearers of 
the Church who have transmitted to us the Scriptures, were un- 
doubtedly better informed and more circumspect than thou. See, 
then, that thou, a son of the Church, do not falsify her ordinances, 
(jji7] irapayapaTTe toi>? 6e<T/J,ous.y' 

Of the twenty-two books of the New Testament, he says : " As 
to the New Testament, there are four Gospels, all the rest being 
false and pernicious. The ManichaBans, too, have written a 
Gospel according to Thomas, which, under the perfume, so to 
speak, of an evangelical surname, leads the souls of the simple to 
perdition. But receive, likewise, the Acts of the twelve apostles, 
and also the seven Catholic Epistles of James and Peter, John 
and Jude ; and lastly, as a seal put on all the disciples, the 
fourteen Epistles of Paul. But let all the other books be placed 
outside, and classed in a secondary rank, (ra Be \onra iravra 

1 They were published at Paris, in Latin, in the year 15G4; and in Latin and 
Greek in the year 1720. 

- Chap, xxxiii., and following. Ed. Bened. Venice, 17G3. 

3 Is it needful to repeat that it was the fancy of the ancient Jews to reduce 
their thirty-nine books to twenty-two, the number of letters in the alphabet ? 
Thus they reckoned the twelve minor prophets as one book, and counted as one 
Ruth with Judges, Ezra with Xehemiah, Jeremiah with the Lamentations, first 
and second Samuel, first and second Kings, first and second Chronicles. 

D * 



50 



FOURTH-CENTURY FATHERS. 



e%co Keladco iv Sevrepa).) As to all such books as are neither 
read nor recognised in the churches, (oaa fjbev iv eKK\r]alat<; /xrj 
avayLvcoo-fcerai,) neither read nor recognise them as far as thou 
art concerned." 

We perceive here, and we shall perceive in the other catalogues, 
that besides the canonical scriptures, two other sorts of books 
had a distinct character assigned them. These were, first, such 
as, without being canonical, might be read in the churches, and 
were, accordingly, called Deutro-canonical, or Ecclesiastical ; and, 
secondly, such as were not allowed to be read in churches, even 
as books of a secondary rank, and were therefore called apoc- 
ryphal. 

Cyril, then, though agreeing on every point with the canon of 
our churches, had not yet restored the Apocalypse to the rank 
it held during the previous centuries ; but, like Eusebius, assigned 
it a secondary place, (iv hevrepw.) He quotes it very distinctly, 
and that three times, (Apoc. xii. and xvii.,) in his fifth Catechesis, 
chapters xii., xiii., and xvii. 

60. Gregory of Nazianzus. — The second catalogue is that of 
the celebrated Gregory of Nazianzus, who, according to Cave, 
was born in the year in which the first general council was held ; 
and at the age of fifty- six, was made patriarch of Constantinople 
about the time of the second. He died eight years afterwards, 
(in 389,) at the age of sixty-four. 1 

That great man, a son of the bishop of Nazianzus, by whom 
he was ordained to the holy ministry, had acquired a brilliant 
reputation during the course of his studies at Csesarea, Alex- 
andria, and Athens. He administered the see of Nazianzus 
during the old age of his father, and had distinguished himself by 
his strict conscientiousness, as well as by his pre-eminent talents, 
when he was appointed by the Council of Antioch, in 378, to 
proceed to Constantinople, for the purpose of opposing Arianism, 
and erecting the banner of divine truth there. The task assigned 
him was arduous ; his life was more than once in danger ; the 
Arians had for forty years been in possession of all the public 
churches there, and their audacity was remarkable ; but Gregory 

1 These dates are those given by Cave, (Hist. Lit., p. 246 ;) but Fdbricius (Bibl. 
Grsec. viii., 384) states that he was born in 300, and died in 391. 



GREGORY NAZIAXZUS. 



51 



succeeded in bringing back, in a short space of time, a large 
number of them to the side of truth. He collected an audience 
in a private chapel belonging to one of his relatives, which was 
afterwards called the " Church of the Kesurrection," (tt}? ava- 
crracrea)?,) as in it commenced the resurrection, as it were, of the 
national Church. A crowd of eager adherents were regularly 
attending his powerful preaching ; when at length the Emperor 
Theodosius, declaring himself his patron, procured his promotion 
to the patriarchate of Constantinople, with the unanimous consent 
of one hundred and fifty bishops, convened in a general council 
for that purpose. The arrival, however, of the bishops of Egypt, 
towards the end of the council, raised so violent a storm against 
his election, that, for the peace of the Church, he deemed it his 
duty to resign his office, and return to Cappadocia, to spend the 
remainder of his life in devotion, labour, and retirement. 

A pious believer, an elegant poet, a preacher of great power 
and majesty, he was specially respected by the age in which he 
lived as an unrivalled divine. He was, accordingly, surnamed the 
Divine, (o OeoXoyos.) " To oppose, in any point," says Eufinus, 1 
" the views of Gregory was, in the sight of the Lord, and of the 
churches, downright heresy." (Id obtinuit apud Dominum et 
ecclesias Dei meriti, ut quicunque ausus fuerit doctrina) ejus in 
aliquo refragari, et hoc ip>so quia ipse sit magis hwreticus argu- 
atur.) His writings have been preserved to us almost entire. 
They consist of sermons, poems, and letters. His catalogue, which 
forms the whole subject of one of his poems, is entitled, " The 
Genuine (yvncrlwv) Books of Inspired Scripture." 

After a very accurate enumeration of the books of the Old 
Testatment, (in the first nineteen verses,) we have these lines : — 

'Ap^aiay pei> e#?//ca 8va> Koi e'Uoat /3i'/3Aour, 

Ten? ej3pal(ov ypuppaaiv uvTiderovs. 
MaT^aioy pev eypacpev efipalois Oavpara Xptarov, 

McipKos 8 'iraXt'a, Auvkus ' Avatiaot* 
Uaai 8' 'luxivurjs K7]p\>£ ptyas, ovpavoCpotTrjs 

" I have given the twenty-two books of the Old Testament 
corresponding to the letters of the Hebrews. Then, Matthew 
wrote for the Hebrews the wonders of Christ ; Mark for Italy ; 

1 Prol. in libr. Grcgorii. 



52 



FOURTH-CENTURY FATHERS. 



Luke for Achaia; but John for all — John the great herald of 
arms, who traversed the heavens. Then, the Acts of the Apostles, 
and the fourteen Epistles of Paid, and the seven Catholic Epistles — 
one of James, two of Peter, and again three of John ; that of Jude 
is the last. Thou hast them all ; and if any one besides be pre- 
sented to you, it is not one of the genuine inspired scriptures, 
(ovtc ev yvrjaLOis.y 

61. The canon of Gregory is thus, we perceive, the same as our 
own, with the single exception of the Apocalypse. He, however, 
alludes to it very clearly (in his twenty-fourth verse) in calling 
John the great herald who traversed the heavens. Andreas, 
therefore, bishop of Csesarea, who wrote a commentary on the Apo- 
calypse towards the end of the fifth century, states that Gregory 
the Divine regarded the Apocalypse " as inspired and authentic." 1 
We read, in Lardner, 2 two passages in which the same Gregory 
expressly appeals to the Apocalypse of John : once, when he says, 
" As John teaches me in his Apocalypse, (&>9 'Icoavvijs hiSaaiceL 
yLte hia r?}? ^AiroKCLkv^reco^ •) and a second time, when he quotes 
the eighth verse of the fourth chapter of the Apocalypse : Kal 6 
cov, Kal 6 rjv, Kal 6 ip^ofjuevo^, 6 JJavTOKpaTcop." 

However, we are rather inclined to think that Gregory of Nazi- 
anzus, like Cyril and Eusebius, had not, at the period in ques- 
tion, restored that inspired book to the rank of canonical, in the 
strict sense of the term, and merely assigned it a place among the 
books called ecclesiastical, — permitted to be read publicly in the 
churches of God. 3 

62. Philastrius. — The third catalogue is that of Philastrius, the 
friend of Ambrose, and bishop of Brescia. He flourished about 
the year 380. He had travelled much in the cause of the truth, 
and had valiantly contended against Arianism. Augustin men- 
tions having met with him at Milan, in the house of Ambrose. 4 
A work of his is still extant, entitled, De Hceresibus. It is to be 

1 Bib. Pat. Max., v. 1590. Constat namque beatos illos vivos, Gi'egorium theologum, 
Cyrillum Alexandrinum, etc., divinum fideque dignum non uno loco tradere. 

2 Tom. iv., p. 287. 

3 We find among the works of the same father another catalogue, which some 
attribute to Amphilochius, and of which we shall speak further on, (thesis 82.) 

4 At the beginning of his book Be Hceresibus. 



PHILASTRIUS. 



53 



found in voL v. of the great library of the fathers and in the 40th 
and 41st articles of that book, his catalogue of the books of the 
New Testament is given as follows : — 

"Article 40. It has been established as a rule," says he, "by 
the apostles and their successors, that nothing else should be read 
in the Church (non aliud legi in ecclesia debere in Catholica) but 
the Laiv and the Prophets ; and with the Gospels, the Acts of the 
Apostles, and the thirteen Epistles of Paid, and seven others, — 
two of Peter, three of John, one of Jude, and one of James ; 
which are all annexed to the Acts of the Apostles. As to the 
apocryphal writings, though they ought to be read by advanced 
Christians for edification, (etsi legi debent morum causa a per- 
fectis,) they ought not to be read by all, because heretics, ignorant 
of the truth, have added or retrenched many things as they 
thought proper." 

63. On reading merely this 40th article, we might suppose that 
Philastrius, while fully recognising the whole of our first canon, as 
well as our second, did not receive our second-first. This, how- 
ever, would be a mistake, as far as regards the Epistle to the 
Hebrews ; in his 4] st article, (entitled, " Heresy of certain persons 
touching the Epistle to the Hebrews,") he adds : — 

" Others maintain that the Epistle to the Hebrews was not 
written by Paul, but by the Apostle Barnabas, or by Clement, 
bishop of Eome. Others, again, assert that Luke had written an 
epistle to the Laodiceans ; and that, as indiscreet persons had 
added various things to it, it is not read in the Church ; or if some 
read it, it is only the thirteen Epistles of Paul that are regularly 
read to the people in the Church, and the Epistle to the Hebrews 
is not read except occasionally, {nisi tredecim epistola} ipsius, et 
ad Hebrazos interdum) That epistle being written in a flowing 
and agreeable style (rhetorice scripsit, sermone plausdbili) has given 
rise to the impression that Paul was not its writer. The expres- 
sion, 'Iwcrovv Triarbv ovra rS) TroirjaavTi, avrov, (Heb. iii. 23,) has 
also led some to reject it. Some, moreover, reject it for what it 
says of repentance, as sanctioning the views of the Novatians, 
(lleb. vi. 4, and following.) " 



1 Bib. Put. Max., p. 711. 



54 



FOURTH-CENTURY FATHERS. 



We have thus seen that the catalogue of Philastrius (the third 
and last of the catalogues of the fourth century which omit the 
Apocalypse) regards as heretics those who denied that the Epistle 
to the Hebrews was written by Paul. Only, in admitting into the 
canon the Epistle to the Hebrews, Philastrius is at pains to state 
the three intrinsic grounds of the prejudice entertained by some 
of the Latins against that part of Holy Scripture. 

We shall have occasion to return to the subject in Book Third. 

Section II. 

ALL THE OTHER SIX CATALOGUES OF THE FATHERS OF THE FOURTH 
CENTURY ARE ENTIRELY IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CANON OF 
OUR CHURCHES. 

64. All other catalogues drawn up by fathers of the fourth cen- 
tury were, on all points, identical with the catalogue which has 
been received for the last 1500 years by all the churches in Chris- 
tendom. Those catalogues are, — .1. That of Athanasius the Great, 
who was only twenty-six years younger than Eusebius ; 2. That 
of another contemporary father, whose name is unknown to us ; 

3. That of Epiphanius, archbishop of Cyprus, only fourteen years 
(or, according to others, only four years) younger than Athanasius ; 

4. That of Jerome, secretary to Damasus, bishop of Kome, and 
thirty-five years younger than Epiphanius ; 5. That of Rufinus, 
a presbyter of Aquileia, the intimate friend of Jerome before be- 
coming his adversary, and, like him, versed in literature, both of 
the East and of the West, owing to his residence at Jerusalem 
from 371, and at Eome from 396 ; 6. That of Augustin, the holy 
bishop of Hippo, twenty-three years younger than Jerome. 

We shall present to the reader a brief examination of the pre- 
ceding catalogues respectively. 

65. Athanasius. — The testimony of this great man is of the 
very highest importance, on account of his rank, his talents, and 
character, and the whole of his career. He was unquestionably 
the most illustrious personage of his time, not merely from his 
steadfastness in the faith, but the extent of his erudition, and the 
energy and clearness of his intellect, that ever shine forth in his 



ATHANASIUS. 



55 



writings, (\eyeiv re real voelv Uavov, says Sozomen ;) 1 but also 
because his incessant contending against Arius and the secular 
power, which, for the most part, was on the side of Arius, filled up 
fifty years of his life, and compelled him to make a personal visit 
to every part of the empire. From Alexandria he had to repair to 
Tyre, Constantinople, Borne, Belgium, and to the deserts of the 
Thebaid. Born in 296, as is thought, he lived more than eighty 
years, and was a bishop for more than half-a-century. Everybody 
knows how wonderfully he distinguished himself, notwithstanding 
his youth, (still under thirty,) in the General Council of Nice, 
and that, only five months after the close of the council, he became 
patriarch of Alexandria. Persecuted by the two Eusebiuses, more 
than once deprived of his see, banished, even condemned to death, 
he had, during his travels and long exile, an opportunity of ascer- 
taining, better than any other man, the mind of all the churches of 
the East and of the West regarding the Scriptures. His testimony 
is, therefore, the most accurate expression possible of the mind of 
the Church universal in the fourth century. " His life," 2 says 
Sozomen, " is the model of the episcopate, and his doctrine the 
rule of orthodoxy, (vo/llos 8bp6oho%las ra i/ceivov Soyjiara.) " 

After what has been said, we proceed to shew the immense 
difference that exists, as to firm belief in the entire Scriptures, be- 
tween his language and that of Eusebius, his contemporary, but 
the friend of Arius. 

66. "As for us," he says, in his "Festal Epistle," 3 "we have 
the Holy Scriptures for our salvation ; but I am afraid, as Paul 
wrote to the Corinthians, (2 Cor. xi. 3,) that a small number of 
simple persons have been turned away from simplicity and holiness 
by the wickedness of men, and induced to read apocryphal works, 
from having been misled by the identity of their titles with those 
of genuine books. It appears to me, therefore, of importance to 
the Church that I should give a list of these ; and, in doing this, I 
shall borrow the words of Luke, 4 and say, " As some have thought 

1 Lib. ii., c. 17. Ed. Valesii, p. 466. 

2 Cave (Scrip. Eccl., torn, i., p. 191) quotes Sozomen, p. 397; but we have not 
been able to find the words there. , 

3 Festal Ep., xxxix., torn, ii., p. 961. Ed. Bened. Taris, 1698. 

4 Luke i. 1-3, paraphrased. 



56 



FOURTH-CENTURY FATHERS. 



proper to draw up a list of apocryphal hooks, and to mix them 
with the inspired scriptures, regarding which we have obtained 
perfect certainty, (eirkripofyoprjOriiJLev) from the testimony of the 
fathers, received from those who were from the beginning eye- 
witnesses and ministers of the word ; it seemed good to me also, 
at the request of faithful brethren, to enumerate, in order, the 
books held and delivered, and believed as of Divine authority, 
(ra KavovL^ofxeva /cal irapahoOevra TrurTevOevra re Oeia elvao 
fiijSkla,) that whoever may have been led astray may blame those 
who have misled them." 

" The list of the Old Testament books is this," (he then gives 
them.) 

" But we must also enumerate the books of the New Testament. 
They are as follows : — " The four Gospels — Matthew, Mark, Luke, 
and John. Then the Acts of the Apostles, and the seven Catholic 
Epistles of these apostles ; one of James and two of Peter ; then 
three of John and one of Jude. There are then fourteen epistles 
of Paul, in the following order, (rfj rd^ei, <ypacj)6fjL€vai, ovrm) — one 
to the Romans ; then two to the Corinthians ; then (epistles re- 
spectively) to the Ephesians, Philippians, and Golossians ; then 
two to the Thessalonians, and one to the Hebrews ; then, imme- 
diately after these, two to Timothy, one to Titus, and, lastly, one 
to Philemon; and, again, the Apocalypse of John." 

We feel a pleasure in giving a literal translation of these cata- 
logues, (notwithstanding the repetition of the same terms,) to im- 
press upon the reader the distinct and constant uniformity with 
which the order of the books (ra^ii) was, from the beginning, 
handed down in the Church, though this order was not in accord- 
ance with the respective dates of the books. This circumstance, 
as we shall shew, is not without importance in the history of 
the canon. 

" These books," adds Athanasius, " are the fountains of salva- 
tion, to which the thirsty may repair to obtain refreshment from 
the oracles they contain ; for it is only in these books that pious 
inquirers can learn evangelical truths, (eV tovtols /ulovols to -n}? 
evaeftetas SiSaafcaXeiov evayyeXl^eTai.) Let no person add anything 
to them, and let no person take anything away from them." .... 

" Tor further precision it is necessary to add, that, besides these 



THE ANONYMOUS FATHER. 



57 



books, there are others which, though not admitted into the canon, 
(pv tcavovityfjievcL p<ev,) have been stamped (r€TV7rcop,eva Be) as 
proper to be read by those who, having but recently come among 
us, are desirous of obtaining pious instruction — the Wisdom of 
Solomon, and the Wisdom of Sirach, and Esther, Judith and Tobias, 
and what are called the apostolic institutes, (jcaX StSa^r) KcCkovybkvr) 
rcov clttoo-toXcov,) and the Pastor of Hermas. Therefore, beloved, 
as the former are canonical, and the latter proper to be read, to 
such alone confine your attention, making no mention whatever of 
apocryphal writings, (ovSafiov tcov airoKpv^v javtj/jLT].) These 
are an invention of heretics, who have written according to their 
fancy, and have assigned them dates, in order to palm them on 
the simple as ancient writings/' 

It is thus perfectly clear that the list given by Athanasius is 
complete, as was that of Origen, who lived one hundred and fifty 
years earlier. But even then it was customary to reckon two sorts 
of writings besides the twenty-seven canonical books. The first 
was a small number of books which were called ecclesiastical, and 
which might be read in the churches ; the second was carefully 
denounced under the name apocryphal. The same distinction 
will be found in other catalogues. 

67. The Anonymous Father. — The second catalogue is that of 
a contemporary of Athanasius, frequently confounded with him, 
the Greek text of which is to be found among the collective works 
of Athanasius, and entitled, " Synopsis of Holy Scripture'' 1 This 
brief composition is admired as " a model of accuracy, sagacity, 
and learning," according to the Benedictine Fathers, (tanta cura, 
sagacitate, eruditione elaborata, ut nihil supra.) Its contents 
are as follows : — " All Scripture is held by us Christians as in- 
spired, (OeoTTvevaTos) It consists, not of indefinite books, but of 
books definite and recognised as canonical, {aKXa jjLaXXov wpiaueva 
/ecu Ke/cavovi(TfJLeva e^et tcl /3i{3\la.) The books of the Old Testa- 
ment are, (then follows the list.) The canonical books of the New 
Testament are : The four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the 
seven Catholic Epistles of different apostles, counted as one book, 
(lie enumerates them in their established order ;) the fourteen 
Epistles of Paid, counted as one book, (he enumerates them, too, 

1 Benedictine edition, torn, ii., p. 125, Paris, 1698. 



58 



FOURTH-CENTURY FATHERS. 



in their established order ;) and, in addition to these books, (eVt 
rovrots,) there is also the Apocalypse of John the divine, received 
as his, (SexOeccra &>? i/ceivov,) and recognised by the fathers, who 
were holy men, and inspired of God, (real iyfcpiOelcra vtto iraktv 
aylwv /ecu 7rv€V/xaro(p6pQ)v 7rarepcDV.) 

" Such are the canonical books of the New Testament, which 
are, as it were, the first fruits, the anchors and props of our faith, 
inasmuch as they were written and left as a deposit (real ifCTeOevra) 
by the apostles of Christ themselves." 

68. Epiphanius. — The third catalogue, that of Epiphanius, is to 
be found in his " Panarium," or treatise " Against Heresies." 

The writings of this father, who was born in Palestine, and of 
Jewish extraction, are, equally, of great value, owing to the vast 
extent of his literary attainments, and his acknowledged familiarity 
with ecclesiastical antiquities (antiquitatum prcesertim ecclesias- 
ticarum callentissimus) 1 He was master of five languages, 
(irevrdyXcoacro^) says Jerome, " being equally skilled in Hebrew, 
Syriac, Egyptian, Latin, and Greek." His treatise "Against 
Heresies" is, in the opinion of Photius, from its copious quota- 
tions from Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and other ancient 
authors, more rich and more useful than any work written before 
him on the same subject. " His writings," says Jerome, in another 
part of his works, " are read and re-read (lectitantur) by scholars 
of real erudition, on account of the matter, (propter res,) and by 
persons of less learning, on account of the style, (propter verba.)" 

Brought up in Egypt, and perverted to Gnosticism before he was 
twenty years of age, he had returned to his native country, to put 
himself under the direction of the celebrated Hilarion, the esta- 
blisher of monasticism in Palestine. He had himself afterwards 
founded the monastery of Ad, over which he presided when he 
was called to the important see of Salamis, in Cyprus. It was 
principally in that maritime and commercial city that he acquired 
an early celebrity by his preaching and his writings, as well as by 
the soundness of his doctrine and the purity of his life. He lived 
to a great age. It is even said that at the time of his death, in 
402, he was considerably more than a hundred years old. Born 



1 Cave, torn, i., p. 232. 



EPIPHANIUS. 



59 



in the third century, he died in the fifth, after having been thirty- 
six years a bishop. We find him acting an eminent part at Rome 
and at Constantinople, combating with great firmness various evil 
tendencies of his age, and especially the Arian heresy, as well as 
the use of images, which was then beginning to appear, and the 
too-much-accredited errors of Origen. Hence arose his dispute 
with John of Jerusalem, and even with the illustrious Chrysostom, 
whom he reproached for not having condemned them in a manner 
sufficiently clear and distinct. Epiphanius has been accused of 
laying too much stress on tradition. 

69. His words on the canon are these : — 

" Hadst thou been regenerated by the Holy Spirit, and taught 
by the prophets and apostles, thou wouldst, in proceeding from the 
creation to the time of Esther, read the twenty-seven books of the 
Old Testament, (the Hebrews reckon only twenty-two,) and the 
four holy Gospels, and the fourteen epistles of the holy apostle 
Paul, with the Acts of the Apostles, (Acts written previously or 
during the same period,) and also the Catholic Epistles of James, 
Peter, John, Jude, and the Apocalypse of John, besides the two 
books of Wisdom, that of Solomon, and that of the Son of Sirach, 
and, in a word, (avrXw?,) all the sacred scriptures." 

70. Such is the exact and complete catalogue of Epiphanius, as 
to the New Testament. We do not, for the present, say any- 
thing of the Old Testament, as we wish to avoid adding any unne- 
cessary complication to our task. Otherwise, we would have 
pointed out the error of Ejriphanius, who recommends two unca- 
nonical books, " The Wisdom of Sirach," (Ecclesiasticus,) and " The 
Wisdom of Solomon." In his time they formed a distinct class, 
(as we shall by and by shew, in examining the catalogue of Rufinus,) 
and were called Ecclesiastical. As distinguished from apocryphal 
writings, they were allowed to be publicly read. " Besides the 
twenty-seven given by God to the Jews, (eV Qeov SoOelaai roU 
'Iovhaloi?,) and by them reckoned twenty-two," says Epiphanius, 
at the beginning of the same work, " there are, independently of 
the apocryphal writings, two books which are controverted among 
them, {irap avrois ev ajjL(j)i\€fCT(p,) the Wisdom of Sirach and the 
Wisdom of Solomon." " These two books are unquestionably use- 
ful and edifying/' he adds in another place ; " but they are not 



60 FOUETH-CENTUEY FATHEES. 

placed among the acknowledged books, and that is the reason why 
they have not bee admitted into the ark of the covenant, (AX)C 
eh apiOfiov prjrcov ovk ava^epovrai, hib ovBe iv rrj r?}? $iadrj/cr)<; 
ki(3(dtw avereOrjaav?)" 

71. Jerome. — The fourth catalogue is that of Jerome. Of all 
the fathers of the fourth century this illustrious doctor is unques- 
tionably the most worthy to be heard on the canon of Scripture ; 
not, indeed, for his character, or his meekness, or candour, or spi- 
ritual knowledge of the gospel, or even for his respect for the 
sacred books, — his language on this point being often unseemly ; 
but for his unvaried perspicuity, his acquaintance with the sacred 
tongues, his erudition, his travels, his immense application, and his 
long residence in Palestine, where his researches in connexion with 
the Scriptures were unceasing. 

This celebrated man, who, by his life, belongs equally to the 
West and to the East, was raised up by God to spread a great 
light in the Church, by urging the study of the sacred texts, and 
bringing back general attention, especially among the Latins and 
Greeks, to the pure sources of Biblical truth. His career, more- 
over, was, like that of Epiphanius, of great length, as he died in 
420 at the age of eighty-nine. Born in Upper Dalmatia, he re- 
paired to Rome for the purpose of continuing his studies under 
the eloquent Victorinus, the African. Entering on his first course 
of travels, he traversed Gaul, visiting all the libraries, proceeding 
as far as Treves to meet with Hilarius, and returning by Aquileia 
to Venice to see Rufinus. From that he went to Thrace, and, 
passing over into Asia, proceeded as far as Antioch, for the pur- 
pose of passing four years in the solitude of the desert, and de- 
voting himself entirely to the study of oriental languages and the 
Holy Scriptures. It was only at the age of forty-nine that he was 
ordained a presbyter. Already, however, famous all over the em- 
pire, he repaired to Constantinople a short time before the second 
general council, which was held there in 381. In that capital he 
attended, with great ardour, the lectures of Gregory of Nazianzus, 
till he left it in company with Epiphanius and Paulinus for Rome, 
where he spent three years, and where Bishop Damasus appointed 
him one of his private secretaries. Thoroughly disgusted, how- 
ever, with that city, after the death of Damasus, he left it in 385, 



JEROME. 



61 



never to return. He visited Epiphanius in Cyprus ; thence passed 
over to Jerusalem, and, the following year, went to Egypt, where 
he became a hearer of the illustrious Didymus. Keturning at 
length to Palestine, he entered on his long and last retirement in 
the plain of Bethlehem. It was there, during the space of thirty- 
three years, that he wrote the greatest part of his works ; and that, 
constantly visited by the most illustrious individuals, he became 
the oracle of his age. 

72. Jerome has given us his catalogue under more than one 
form ; and it may be stated, before we proceed further, that the 
first volume of his works is itself a catalogue. It has been called 
Divina Hieronymi Bibliotheca, as it contains all the books of Holy 
Scripture, translated by Jerome from Hebrew or Greek, with pre- 
faces of great value prefixed. It is divided into three parts. The 
first comprehends the Hebrew canon, or the Pentateuch, the Pro- 
phets, and the Hagiographa. The second contains some books of 
the Old Testament, which Jerome had translated either from the 
Chaldaic or from the Greek of the Septuagint. The third con- 
tains all the books of the New Testament, with prefaces and 
copious notes. In his preface to the seven epistles, which is ad- 
dressed to Eustochius, the author informs us that, having found, 
in the Latin manuscripts, the Epistle of Peter misplaced, and put 
at the head of the rest, (from a mistaken zeal for the primacy of 
that apostle,) he had been at pains to restore it to its proper place, 
"in conformity/' he says, "to the order always observed in the 
Greek manuscripts." He informs us, at the same time, that un- 
faithful translators had omitted the passage relating to the three 
witnesses in the First Epistle of John. Some have pretended to 
deny that the preface in question was written by Jerome, but we 
cannot enter on this point here. 

73. Besides this, Jerome has given us his catalogue directly, 
and more than once ; first in his treatise De Viris Illustrious, 1 
written in 392, and afterwards in his Epistle to Paulinus, 2 
written in 397. 

In that letter he says : — 

1 Chap. v. ; Opera, torn. iv. 

3 Tom. iv., p. 574. Edit. Bened. (Martianay), Paris, 1693. 



62 



FOURTH-CENTURY FATHERS. 



" I shall just briefly refer to the New Testament. It contains 
first Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the four-horsed chariot of 
the Lord, the true cherubims, (then follows a mystic explanation 
of the chariots of Ezekiel.) Then Paul writes to seven churches, 
for his- eighth epistle, that to the Hebrews, is, by the Latins, usually 
arranged separately, (a plerisque extra numerum ponitur.) He 
writes to Timothy and to Titus ; he recommends to Philemon a 

fugitive slave The Acts of the Apostles seem to describe 

the infancy of the Christian Church ; but on learning that the 
writer of that book is Luke the physician, ' whose praise is in the 
gospel/ (2 Cor. viii. 1 8,) we are satisfied that all its words are a 
remedy for a diseased soul. The apostles James, Peter, John, and 
Jude, have published seven epistles, as mystic as condensed, and 
at once both short and long — short as to the words, long as to 
the sense The Revelation of John contains as many mys- 
teries as words, (tot habet sacramenta quot verba.) What I say of 
it is little in comparison to the merit of the book/' He adds, " In 
verbis singulis multiplices latent intelligentias" 

74. We see, then, that Jerome, like the rest, received the seven 
epistles controverted and uncontroverted. He considered all the 
four writers apostles ; he extols the Revelation, and specifies the 
fourteen epistles of Paul, saying, merely in reference to the Epistle 
to the Hebrews, that " the Latins for the most part exclude it." 
He is very far from saying that he himself excludes it, for he is at 
pains to repeat, in various parts of his writings, that he regards it 
as canonical, and believes it to be Paul's. 

He wrote to Dardanus, about the year 414, as follows : — " Our 
friends (the Latins) must be made to understand that the Epistle 
to the Hebrews is received as Paul's, not only by the churches of 
the East, but likewise by all the earlier Greek ecclesiastical authors, 
(ab omnibus retro ecclesiasticis Grwci sermonis scriptoribus^) 
though most people there believe it to have been written by Bar- 
nabas or Clement. It must also be remarked that it is really of 
small importance whether Paul or some other planter of the 
churches wrote it, since its Divine authority is daily recognised, 
by the fact of its being publicly read in the churches, (et quotidie 
ecclesiarum lectione celebratur.) If usage among the Latins has 
not admitted it to a place among the canonical Scriptures, and if, 



RUFINUS. 



63 



on the other hand, the churches of the Greeks do not receive so 
freely (as the Latins) the Revelation of John, we recognise both, 
(tamen nos utrumque suscipimus,) as we desire to follow, not the 
usage of the present time, but the authority of ancient authors." 

7-5. Rufinus. — The fifth catalogue is that of Eufinus, a presbyter 
of Aquileia. 

Long on terms of friendship with Jerome, he was his fellow- 
student in the schools of Aquileia, travelled, like him, in the East, 
(about the year 371,) visited, like him, Egypt, attached himself, like 
him, to JDidymus, established, like him, a monastery in Palestine, 
where he spent twenty-five years ; but, having engaged in a con- 
troversy with Epiphanius, from zeal for the memory and doctrine 
of Origen, he drew upon himself the enmity of Jerome, and re- 
turned to Italy in 397, to die in Sicily in 410." 

His catalogue, which is to be found in his Exposition of the 
Apostles' Creed, 1 is so remarkable for the clearness and precision 
of its language, that we shall translate the greater part of it : — 

" It was the Holy Spirit," says he, " that, in the Old Testament, 
inspired the Law and the Prophets, and in the New Testament, 
the Gospels and the Apostles. Therefore the apostle has said, 
'All scripture is given by inspiration, and is useful for instruc- 
tion.' That is the reason why it appears to me proper to specify 
here, by a distinct enumeration, (evidente numero,) from the 
records of the fathers, the books both of the Old Testament and 
of the New, which, according to the testimony of the ancients, are 
held as inspired by the Holy Spirit, and transmitted to the churches 
of Christ. 

" In the New Testament are the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, 
Luke, and John ; the Acts of the Apostles, written by Luke ; 
fourteen Epistles of the Apostle Paul ; two of the Apostle Peter ; one 
of James the Apostle, and the Lord's brother ; one of Jude ; three 
of John, and John's Apocalypse. Such are the books which the 
fathers have included in the Canon, and on which they have de- 
sired that the assertions of our faith should be founded, {ex quibus 
fidei nostra} assertiones constare voluerunt.) 

" It is necessary, however, to point out, at the same time, that 

1 In the works of Cyprian, p. 26. Amsterdam edition, 1G91. 



64 



FOURTH- CENTURY FATHERS. 



there are, besides these, other books that were called by the 
ancients (a majoribus) not canonical, but ecclesiastical. Such are 
the Wisdom of Solomon, and the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach, 
.... the book of Tobit, that of Judith, and the books of the 
Maccabees. 

" In connexion with the New Testament, there is the short book 
called, The Shepherd of Her mas, (or likewise, The Two Voices, or, 
The Judgment of Peter.) All these books, it is true, were allowed 
to be read in churches, but they could not be quoted for establish- 
ing points of faith, (non tamen proferri ad auctoritatem ex his 
fidei confirmandam.) The other books professing to be scriptures 
are called apocryphal, and are not allowed to be read in churches. 

" I have thought proper," adds Eufinus, " to mention these cir- 
cumstances here, which we know from the fathers, for the infor- 
mation of such as are learning the elements of the faith, that they 
may all understand at what fountain of the Word of God they may 
fill their cups." 

We have here, then, a clear statement of the distinction, which 
we have mentioned in speaking of Athanasius and Epiphanius, of 
three sorts of books — canonical, twenty-seven in number and 
divinely-inspired ; ecclesiastical, to be read in churches solely for 
edification ; and apocryphal, forbidden to be read at all. 

76. Augustin.— The sixth and last catalogue of the fathers of 
the fourth century, entirely the same as our canon, is that of the 
most sublime and the most profound of the ancient doctors, the 
illustrious bishop of Hippo. He is the latest of the fathers that 
we intend to quote in the present inquiry. About a hundred 
years later than Eusebius, he belongs to the end of the fourth cen- 
tury and the beginning of the fifth ; as Eusebius belonged to the 
end of the third and the beginning of the fourth. 

Born in Numidia, of Christian parents, in 355, though, in spite 
of his mother's tears, early drawn into the fatal doctrines and 
practices of the Manichaeans, he was a public professor of rhetoric 
at Carthage, when, at the age of twenty-eight, he left Africa and 
repaired first to Kome, and afterwards to Milan. It was in this 
latter city that, through his intercourse with the illustrious Am- 
brose, who had received him with great kindness, he was convinced 
of his errors ; but it was only in 388, when he had reached the 



AUGUSTIN. 



65 



age of thirty- three, that he was converted from darkness to light, 
by a manifest display of Divine power. Returning the following 
year to Africa, he resided for three years in retirement on his 
father's estate, and was then ordained to the holy ministry at the 
age of thirty-six. Five years afterwards he was called to the 
episcopal see of Hippo. He died in 430 at the age of seventy- 
five, while shut up in the city of Hij^po, which the Vandals, 
already masters of Africa, were then besieging by sea and land. 
This admirable man, who, during his long career, had never 
ceased to labour, by his powerful writings, for the defence of 
the doctrines of grace, and the consolidation of the churches 
of God all over the world, was raised up not only to overthrow, 
during his own age, the Pelagian heresy, but to cast a bene- 
ficent track of light over the Church through all succeeding 
ages. His works have been published in eleven folio volumes. 1 
His " City of God,'"' his commentaries on the Psalms, his ser- 
mons, his letters, his recantations, his confessions, his treatises 
on sin and grace, commend themselves to the Christian reader 
by two main characteristics — the devotional feeling they every- 
where breathe, and his argumentative method, which should 
serve at all times as a pattern to divines, from its being a per- 
petual exposition of the Word of God through the Word of 
God itself. He was a pillar in the house of God, and he remains 
a luminary to all ages. 

77. We copy his catalogue as contained in one of the latest of 
his works, entitled, Be Boctrind Christiana,, 2 begun in 397 and 
completed in 42G. 3 

For the present we omit what he says regarding the Old Testa- 
ment, adducing here his testimony merely as to the New : — 

"The authoritative books of the New Testament are, (Ilisce 
libris Testamenti Novi terminatur auctoritas,) — Quataor libris 
Evangelii, (secundum Mattliceum, Marcum, Lucam, Joanne m ;) 
quatuordecim Epistolis Paidi apostoli, (ad Rom. y ad Cor. duabus, 

1 The best edition, the Benedictine, (Paris, 1G79, and following years,) has been 
reprinted at Antwerp, 1700-1703, and at Paris, in royal octavo, 1835-1840. 

2 Lib. ii., vol. iii., part i., sec. 13, p. 47. Edit. Paris. 1830. 

3 Cave, Hist. Lit., vol. i., p. 290, &c. 

E 



CG 



AUGUSTIN. 



ad Gal, ad Eph, ad Thess. duabus, ad Col., ad Tim. duabus, ad 
Titum, ad Philemonem, ad Hebrceos ;) Petri duabus; tribus Joan- 
nis ; una Judw, et una Jacobi ; Actibus Apostolorum, libro uno; 
et Apocalypsi Joannis, libro uno." 



CHAPTEE XI. 



SOME OTHER CATALOGUES, ALLEGED TO BE OF THE FOURTH CEN- 
TURY, AND AGREEING WITH OUR CANON, ARE APOCRYPHAL OR 
SPURIOUS. 

78. Besides these nine catalogues of the fathers of the fourth 
century, three others are quoted. We have not given an account 
of these ; because they do not possess a sufficient claim to our con- 
fidence, one being doubtful and the others forced. 

3 o o 

In the same way, in Chapter VI, when treating of the second 
century, we have not mentioned the apocryphal book of Apostolic 
Canons, 1 which pretends to give, in the name of the apostles, 
" to all the clergy and laity (ttclo-l Kknpucols kcli Xat/cot?) a list of 
the secret and holy books (ae/3dcrfM,a kcli ayta) of the Old and the 
New Testament/' and which specifies the fourteen epistles of Paul 
and the seven other apostolic epistles. In the present chapter, in 
which we treat of the fourth century, we refrain from mentioning 
the three catalogues respectively attributed to Pope Innocent I., to 
Pope Damasus, and to Amphilochius, as we regard the last as 
doubtful and the two others as spurious. 

The same remark applies also to the catalogue pretended to be 
of the fifth century, and ascribed to Pope Gelasius, but of which 
not the slightest mention occurs in historical documents previous 
to the time of Isidorus Mercator, in the ninth century. 

Section I. 

CATALOGUE OF INNOCENT I. 

79. Pope Innocent I. (bishop of Pome in 402) is represented 

1 In number 85. Athanasius (Festal Epist. xxxix.) called the collection t; 
btbaxT) tcov aTToaToXcov. The book, at first small, was gradually enlarged. See 
Patres. Apost. Cotelerii, i., pp. 453, 485, edit. Amst. 



68 



SPURIOUS CATALOGUES. 



as having published, towards the end of the fourth, or the begin- 
ning of the fifth century, a list of the books contained in the Canon 
of Scripture. This pretended list entirely agrees, as to the New 
Testament, with that of our churches ; but, as to the Old, it was 
drawn up for the purpose of sanctioning the Apocrypha. 

It is to be found in the pretended Epistle to Exuperus, 1 bishop 
of Toulouse. That epistle, however, says William Cave, 2 ought, 
for the following reasons, to be regarded as entirely spurious — 
1. The barbarism of its style, incompatible with the supposition of 
its being a production of the age of Innocent I. 2. The absurd 
adaptations it contains of Holy Scripture. 3. Its doctrinal errors, 
which were unquestionably unknown till a later period. 4. Very 
gross historical anachronisms. 5. Its mention of rites which had 
not yet been introduced into the Christian Church. Besides, the 
falsity of this pretended document is sufficiently proved by the 
fact that the Council of Carthage, entertaining some doubts in re- 
lation to the canon, resolved to consult Pope Boniface on the 
subject, who was raised to the Papal chair only sixteen years after 
Innocent I. This obviously implies that Innocent had not settled 
the canon. Moreover, as Bishop Cosin remarks, no mention was 
ever made of the epistle in question for three hundred years from 
•the death of Innocent ; and it was never stated that this epistle 
contained a catalogue of inspired books till a hundred years after 
its appearance ! 

80. The ancient Church was long governed by what was called 
" The Universal Code of Canons a code which was afterwards 
ratified by the Emperor J ustinian. It consisted of two hundred 
and seven canons, enacted by four general councils and five pro- 
vincial. The canons were arranged in a precise order, that their 
number might neither be increased nor diminished. This con- 
tinued to be the case till the time of Dionysius the Younger, 
abbot of Eome, who died in 540. Dionysius undertook to trans- 
late the code from Greek into Latin, but had the hardihood to 
introduce numerous alterations, all in favour of the Papacy. He 
omitted, for example, the eight canons of the Council of Ephesus, 
a large portion of the last canon of Laodicea, the last three canons 

1 Third edit., Paris, 1671 ; vol. ii., p. 1256. 

2 Hist. Lit., i., p. 379. 



CATALOGUE OF DAMASUS. 



69 



of Constantinople, the last two of Chalcedon, and he added a great 
number of canons unknown to the Christian Church. Yet, let 
us remark that, with all these alterations, there appeared no 
decretal epistle of a pope ; so that, for a hundred years, even the 
Roman Code contained no trace of an Epistle of Innocent It 
was not till 200 years after Dionysius the Little, and 300 after 
Innocent, that an abridgement of the Canons, (Breviarum Cano- 
num,) drawn up in 689 by Cresconius, an African bishop, added 
to the Code of Dionysius the Little the decretal epistles of six 
popes, and among these an Epistle to Exuperus. Even then this 
pretended Epistle of Innocent did not as yet contain his pretended 
catalogue. It was not till a hundred years after Cresconius, or 
400 years after Innocent L, that Isidorus Mercator, in the year 
800, published his Collection of Decretals, — " such a collection/' 
says Cosin, " as no honest man could bring himself to use ; and it 
remained without effect till Pope Leo IV. (in 850) and Pope 
Nicholas, (in 860,) perceiving the advantage they might derive 
from these false decretals, promulgated them as law/' 

We enter into these details here merely to avoid the necessity 
of recurring to them when we shall have occasion subsequently to 
speak of the False Decretals, and the pernicious use which was 
made of them in the Apocrypha question. 

Section II. 

CATALOGUE OF DAMASUS. 

81. For the same reasons as the preceding we refrain from 
mentioning, in connexion with the fourth century, the pretended 
catalogue of Damasus, 1 contained in a decree (De Explanatione 
Fidei) said to have been passed under that Pope in a council at 
Rome, between 366 and 384. That catalogue, agreeing, as to 
the New Testament, with that of our churches, is introduced in 
these terms : — " Nunc vero de Scripturis Divinis agendum est, 
quid universalis Catholica Ecclesia teneat et quid vitari debeat." 
We regard it as spurious, like that of Innocent, as it is now well 
ascertained that all the decretals professing to be anterior to Pope 



1 See Credner, Gescbiclite des Kanons, iv., pp. 137-196. 



70 



SPUEIOUS CATALOGUES. 



Syricus (from 384 to 398) are to be classed among the False 
Decretals, which no one, even in the Eoman camp, any longer 
dares to uphold. 

Section III. 

CATALOGUE OF AMPHILOCHIUS.l 

82. Lastly, as to the catalogue in Greek verse, usually published 
among the works of Gregory the Divine, (under the title of Iambi 
ad Seleacum,) and often ascribed to Amphilochius, bishop of 
Iconium about the year 380, and of which we have already spoken, 
(Thesis 61,) we regard it as, at least, apocryphal, if not spurious. 
Neither its date, nor its author, nor its history, is accurately 
known. It abounds in metrical faults, and there is no sufficient 
reason for believing that Amphilochius was its author. We pos- 
sess no authentic work of that bishop so as to be able to institute 
a comparison. Many have even been inclined to ascribe it to 
Gregory of Nazianzus, as if these Iambics presented to us a 
second and a poetic expression of his mind on the canon. What- 
ever is to be concluded regarding the author and origin of this 
apocryphal catalogue, it comprehends in the true canon of the 
inspired Scriptures all the twenty-seven books of the New Testa- 
ment; but adds that some erroneously (pvtc ev Xeyovrasi) reject 
the Epistle to the Hebrews, while others do not receive the brief 
epistles of John and Jude, and that a still greater number of per- 
sons do not receive the Apocalypse. After having specified all 
our twenty-seven books, and only these, the writer concludes 
thus : — 

Ovtos d\lsev8e(TTos 
Kav(bv av e\r) tqov Seonvevarcov Ypa(f)a>u. 

" Let such be held as the true canon of inspired Scriptures." 

1 This is the Amphilochius who, in order to obtain from Theodosius the long- 
refused decree against the Arians, presented himself one day before the emperor 
without offering any homage to his son, Arcadius, who sate on a throne beside 
him. " You are displeased at my irreverence, and with reason. But what must 
the eternal Father, the King of kings, think of those who refuse to honour His 
only Son, and who blaspheme His holy name ?" — Sozomen, bk. vii., chap. ix. 



CHAPTER XII 



THE TWO CATALOGUES, DRAWN UP BY COUNCILS, OF THE 
FOUETH CENTURY. 

Section I. 

NATURE OF THEIR TESTIMONY. 

83. What we have now heard from the mouth of all the 
Fathers of the fourth century, who have bequeathed to us their 
definitions of Holy Scripture, is in strict accordance with the state- 
ments of councils of the same century, that formally inquired into 
the number of the sacred books, and left us a catalogue of them. 

Only two councils, during the fourth century, have given ex- 
pression to the mind of their times on the canon. These are the 
Council of Laodicea and that of Carthage. The former was held 
in Asia Minor, on the banks of the Lycus, in the province of 
Fhrygia, in the year 364, thirty-nine years after the General 
Council of Nice ; the latter, in Africa, thirty-three years later, 
presided over by Bishop Aurelius, who was aided, it is said, by 
the celebrated Augustin, bishop of Hippo, in the year 397. 

84. "YVe have hitherto seen, from all the catalogues of this cen- 
tury, what striking unanimity the Fathers, from the date of the 
Council of Nice — though on this point no shadow of constraint 
was ever exerted — spontaneously came to an agreement on the 
sacred canon of the New Testament, with the sole exception, on 
the part of a few, of the Kevelation of John. This agreement 
was unshaken, as it had always been, as to the twenty books of 
the first canon ; it was henceforth universal in reference to the 
five antilegomena of Eusebius, or the second canon, and it was no 
less complete as to the Epistle to the Hebrews. There was no 
longer any hesitation, real or apparent, except in reference to the 
Apocalypse. We say real or apparent, because two circumstances 



72 



COUNCILS. 



very different from each other may, according to the case, alter- 
nately account for this diversity. On the one hand, among some, 
the dispute with the millenarians was still too recent, and the 
controversy had been too keen, in the East especially, to admit 
the entire removal of prejudice against that book, which was 
regarded as the great prop of their views. On the other, even in 
many of the Churches most distinctly upholding the divine 
canonicity of the Apocalypse, that book appeared too mysterious 
to be read in public religious meetings. Though, however, these 
two circumstances still contributed more or less to preserve some 
discordance in the language of the Churches in reference to the 
Apocalypse, even that discordance had ceased, and all the Churches, 
on this and on every other point, had come to an entire agreement, 
and were henceforth to utter but one and the same sound all over 
the earth. This will now be attested by the Councils of Laodicea 
and of Carthage, that are going to express themselves as the 
Fathers have done. 

85. It will, however, be proper, before hearing them, to point 
out the exact object they had in view. That object was, on this 
point, evidently the maintenance of the discipline and not of the 
doctrine of the Church. They expressly speak to record testi- 
mony, and not to establish authoritatively an article of faith. 
Neither of these councils professes to decide which books shall 
be held in the Church, henceforth, of Divine authority, and which 
shall not. Their intention was simply to regulate the public 
reading in their religious meetings, and, with this view, to declare 
the mind of contemporaneous churches, and the testimonies of 
antiquity, regarding the canonical books, and the books allowed 
to be read in public. " For," says the Council of Carthage, " we 
know from the Fathers that these are the books which should be 
read in the church, (quia a patribus ista accepimus in ecclesia 
legenda). It will thus be seen that there is nothing in their 
language resembling the haughty tone of the Council of Trent, 
deciding for the universal Church, as God might do, the canonicity 
of such and such a book, and pronouncing an anathema Qjos£ 
jactnm fidei confessionis fundamentum) 1 against all who dare 

1 Words of the Council of Trent, (Sess. iv.,) April 8, 1546. Labbe, Concilia, 
torn, xiv., p. 746. 



LAODICEA. 



73 



to differ in opinion on this point, (Si quis libros \istos\ pro 
sacris et canonicis non susceperit, . . . anathema sit.) The 
decree of the Council of Carthage, as well as that of Laodicea ; 
proves that the councils did not mean to enact what books should 
be recognised as Divine, but to declare what books were already 
held as Divine in the Church of God, according to tradition and 
history, and, therefore, should be publicly read in the religious 
assemblies of Asia Minor and of Africa Zeugitana. 

"Neither private psalms (lSicdtlkovs, that is, composed by 
private individuals) nor un canonical books, (a/cavoviara,)" say^ 
the Council of Laodicea, "shall be recited (Xe<yea6ai) in church,, 
but only the canonical books of the New Testament and of the 
Old. Here are the books to be read, (avajLvcoa/cecrOai,.) " 1 

"It has been deemed by us proper," says that of Carthage, 
" that, besides the canonical Scriptures, nothing should be read in 
church under the name of sacred Scriptures (nihil in ecclesia 
legatur sub nomine Divinarum Scripturarum) except, perhaps, 
it may be allowable to read in it acts of the martyrs, or the 
anniversaries of their death." 2 

86. The catalogue of Laodicea and that of Carthage have each 
two peculiarities : — 

In regard to the Old Testament, the Council of Laodicea en- 
tirely excludes the apocryphal books, and does not mention the 
Apocalypse as part of the New ; while, in all other resj)ects, it is 
identical with the canon of our Churches. 

On the contrary, the Council of Carthage admits the apocryphal 
books as part of the Old Testament, and mentions the Apocalypse 
as part of the New ; so that, as to the New Testament, it is iden- 
tical with the canon of our Churches. 

These two orders of facts, when rightly understood, are quite 
reconcilable, as we shall shew by and by. They are opposed to 
each other only in appearance. 

Section II. 

THE COUNCIL OF LAODICEA. 

87. The Council of Laodicea was convoked to represent the 



1 Cave, Iliat. Litt, p. 362. 



Mansi, iii., p. 891. 



74 



COUNCILS. 



churches throughout the different regions of Asia Minor, and pro- 
mote the revival of ecclesiastical discipline. Thirty-two bishops 
assembled at Laodicea, under the moderatorship of their metro- 
politan, Kunechius, in 364. This date is furnished by the " Code 
of the Canons of the Universal Church" which had early admitted 
the canons of Laodicea, and which was the law of the Church till 
the sixteenth century. The Council of Laodicea, which was much 
larger than a provincial synod, as it contained deputies from the 
whole of Asia Minor, was, from its commencement, an object of 
respect throughout the Christian Church, and its decisions were 
regarded at once, both among the Greeks 1 and the Latins, as 
forming a part of the " Ecclesiastical Kegulations" binding on all 
bishops. This is evident from the epistle which Pope Leo IV. 
addressed, about the year 850, to the clergy of Great Britain. 2 
In fact, it was not only by the sixth Ecumenical Council, held at 
Constantinople, 3 that the canons of Laodicea were admitted into 
the " Code of the Universal Church/' but, previously, by the fourth 
Ecumenical Council, held at Chalcedon in 451, and by a decree of 
the Emperor Justinian in 536; 4 so that, all over the Church, 
they had the same authority as the canons of General Councils 
and the imperial laws that ratified them. 

On these facts the clear and conclusive writings of Justel 5 and 
Le Chassier 6 may be consulted, as well as the learned expositions 
of Bishop Cosin in his work on the canon.? 

88. Yet, how great soever may have been the veneration of the 
ancient Church for the Council of Laodicea, it was to be expected 
that the Eoman doctors would try to destroy its authority, 8 as it 
absolutely excludes from the canonical books the Old Testament 

1 " Hoc concilium, antiqua nobilitate celeberriruum," says Binnius, " Greecorum 
atque Latinorum scriptis celebri memorise commendatum fecit," (Ex Baronio not 
1, in Laod. Cons.) 

2 Canon de Libellis, Dist. 20. 

3 Quini Sexta Synodus in Trullo, (692,) whose canons have met with some ob- 
jections. 

4 Novel. 131. 

5 Prsefat. in Cod. Eccl. Univers. Testimonia prsefixa ante cod. Dionysii Exigu. 

6 Opusc. in consult, de controv. inter Papam Paulum V. et Remp. Venet. 

7 Art. lix.-lxiii. 

8 It is marked as doubtful in many editions of the Councils, for example, in 
Harduin, (1. 79.) 



LAODICEA. 



75 



apocrypha, adniited into the canon 1200 years later by the Council 
of Trent. The arguments of the Bomanists on this point have 
been very powerfully combated by Bishop Cosin : — 

1. " Dionysiiis the Little" say the Eomanists, "has omitted the 
catalogue in his translation of the ' Universal Code of Canons.' n 

But Dionysiiis the Little is known to have made many other 
alterations and omissions. 

2. Neither does the Roman code, they add, contain it. 

But it is to the Greeks rather than to the Latins, to the Uni- 
versal Code, rather than to the Roman Code, that we must appeal. 
The latter omits, in like manner, eight canons of the Council of 
Ephesus, the last three of the Council of Constantinople, and the 
last two of the Council of Chalcedon. 

Besides, says Cosin, the fraud betrays it through a singular 
oversight. In discarding from the 59th canon of Laodicea the 
catalogue of canonical Scriptures, its preface and title have been 
inadvertently retained, and these make a manifest allusion to the 
books enumerated further on in all other editions of the Council. 
Those published by Mercator, Merlin, Crab, Smius, du Tillier, 
Binnius, as well as those published by Balsamon and Zonaras, all 
contain the catalogue omitted in the Roman Code. 1 

3. Catharin, to evade the testimony of the decree of Laodicea, 
has recourse, on the contrary, to the supposition that the catalogue 
was originally more extended, and that the apocryphal books had 
been subsequently omitted. " Vehementer suspicor," says he ; " I 
strongly suspect." 

But by such gratuitous conjectures anything could be established 
and anything overturned. 

4. Lastly, Baroniiis, in his " Annales," goes still further. He 
represents the Council of Laodicea as earlier than that of Nice, 
and makes the latter pass a decree regarding the Apocrypha. 2 He 
thus expected to upset the authority of the former by that of the 
latter, as a General Council can modify the decisions of a Provincial. 

But, in the first place, we have already shewn (Theses 52 and 53) 
that the supposition of a Nicean decree about the book of Judith 
is without foundation. 

1 Codex Canonum et Decretorum Ecclesise Romance, p. 502. 

5 We do not add a translation, as the substance has been given in Thesis 87. 



76 



COUNCILS. 



In the second place, the Code of the Universal Church, in re- 
producing the canons of Laodicea, specifies 364 as the date of the 
Council. 

In the third place, all ancient collections, either Greek or Latin, 
of the Synodical Canons have always placed those of Laodicea 
after those of Antioch, and we know that the Council of Antioch 
was held sixteen years after that of Nice. 

Lastly, the Photinians are condemned in the 7th canon of 
Laodicea. Now, these were first mentioned in 345, that is, twenty 
years after the Council of Nice. 

89. The reader will probably feel an interest in reading the 
•entire decree of Laodicea in the original:— 

Canons LIX. and LX. 1 

Or/ ov dsT idiurr/.ovg -^aX^ovg XzyzcQai h rfj \xxXr\6iot. ovds uxavoviffru 
fit(3\td, dXXd fiova ra, xuvovixd rrig xaiv^g xai naXcuug dia^xyjg. 

"Otfa dsTfiifiXta, dwyivuxrxzffQai r^g naXaiag h<zbri%r\g. a. Tev&Gig xuff/xov, 
(3'."~E%odog Aiyvvrov, y. Abvitixov, d'. 'Ap/#//,o/, s. Asvn^oi/o/xiov, s'/lyjaoug 
Nctjtj, <£'. Kp/ra/. 'PovQ, v\. 'Eodrjg, 6'. BaffiXzicov crgwr?j xai devr'soa, i. Tg/Vjj 
xai riTUgrri, id. Uu(>aXsi'7r6 l (Aiva Kgojrov xai d-vrsoov, i(3'. "Eod^ag Kgurov xai 
dsvrzgov, ty. BifiXog -^aX^aiv sxarov ww/jxovrcc, id'. Hagot/xiai 'SaXopoji/rog, 
is. ExxXr,6ia6r7]g, /?'. r Ataxia aff/udrcuv, 'lw/3, ir\. Aw<5sjccc ^o^Jjra/, 
i0' . 'Hdat'ag, x '. 'legtfiidg xai Bugovy? Qoyivoi xai iirrfroXai, xd. 'Is£sju5?A, 
x/3'. Aai^A. 

Ta ds rrig xaivl^g dia^rig ravra' EvayysXia rz66aoa, xard Mar0a/ot>, 
xara Mdgxov, xara Aovxdv, xard 'ludww Ilod^stg ' AiroGrdXwv, 'EmffroXai 
xaQoXixai iffrd, ovrwg' 'laxJjfiov /xia, Usrgov dvo, 'lojdvvov rgug, 'lovda [x'ta. 
'EniaroXai TlavXov dsxarsaatxPig' Kgbg 'Pojfialovg (ua, ftfog KogivOi'ovg dvo, 
rrfog TaXdrag fila, K$og 'Epsff/oug pi a, <rrfog QtXiir<Kr\6iovg /xla, >rgbg KoXac- 
<sazTg (lia, ngbg QscffaXovixeTg dvo, <rfog 'Efigaiovg /a /a, nfog TifioQzov dvo, Kgbg 
Thot f^ia, vfog ^iXri^ova fiia. 



1 These are the two last of the canons ; but they are numbered 163 and 164 in the 
Universal Code, which contains 207, anterior to the time of Dionysius the Little. 

2 This is no specifying of the apocryphal book of Baruch, but simply an 
exegetical mode of pointing out more distinctly what, according to the Jews, 
their twentieth book contained, which we are accustomed to call "Jeremiah and 
his Lamentations." It was nearly in the same manner that Origen, a hundred 
years before, had distinguished in detail the same book of Jeremiah, (Euseb., Hist. 
Eccl., lib. vi., cap. 25 ;) "Jeremiah," said he, " with his Lamentations and his Epistle 
(chap. 30) forms only one book." Athanasius, also, and Cyril, in designating the 
book of Jeremiah, add, as the Council of Laodicea does, an indication of the con- 
tents of chapter 29th, and of what is to be found in Jeremiah about Baruch. 
(See chapters 32, 36, 43, and 45.) Besides, the meaning of the council's expres- 
sion became clear from the number of twenty-two books, which it carefully retains. 



LAO DICE A. 



77 



90. It may be asked why the assembled bishops in this council 
made no mention of the Apocalypse. Had it not been for their 
silence on this single book, their catalogue would have been per- 
fect. 

Many will undoubtedly attribute this silence to the supposed 
circumstance of the Apocalypse not having been yet restored to 
the canon of sacred books. This explanation, however, we think 
absolutely incompatible with contemporary facts ; and it appears to 
us much more likely that the Fathers of Laodicea, while they ad- 
mitted the canonicity of that sacred book, considered it too sym- 
bolical and too mysterious to be read with propriety in public 
religious meetings. 

In fact, we must not lose sight of the object these fathers had 
in view. Their attention was confined to the public reading of 
the Scriptures in church, and their declaration referred merely to 
two points. First, they prohibited the reading of what was not 
canonical scripture., and, secondly, they decreed that the twenty- 
two books of the Old Testament and twenty-six books of the New, 
should be read. But they did not say that the twenty-seventh 
book, though they did not mention it, was regarded by them as 
uncanonical. In like manner, the Church of England at the 
present day ranks the Apocalypse among the canonical books, 
(Prayer-book, and sixth of her Thirty-nine Articles,) while, on 
the other hand, in the Calendar, and in the preface to the 
Prayer-book, she excludes the Apocalypse from the public 
lessons. 

If the bishops, instead of enacting a mere rule of discipline 
relating to the lessons of the Church, had professed to exclude the 
Apocalypse from the canon, the proceeding would have everywhere 
awakened an outcry, the echoes of which would have reached our 
own times. The council could not have conceived the idea of 
setting at nought the striking testimony rendered to the Apocalypse 
by the most ancient martyrs and the most venerable fathers. The 
assembly could not have solemnly given the lie to the Justin 
Martyrs, the Irenseuses, the Methodiuses, the Hippolytuses, the 
Melitos, the Clements of Alexandria, the Theophiluses of Antioch, 
the Origens, the Tertullians, without calling forth all over the 
Church an outburst of amazement and disapprobation. 



78 



COUNCILS. 



Tertullian, in denouncing "heresies," had specified as one of 
them the rejection of the Apocalypse. 1 

On the contrary, not one of the illustrious admirers of the 
Apocalypse, during that period, was heard to complain. Yet 
many such flourished at the very time of the council, and the 
fame of their writings filled the whole Christian world. Athanasius 
was still alive. So were Epiphanius, Basil the Great, Ephrem, all 
equally attached to the canonicity of that book. 2 Jerome and 
Rufinus were still in the prime of life. 3 Not only, however, was 
none of these eminent men heard to complain of the decision so 
contrary to their convictions, but none of the writers opposed to 
restoring the Apocalypse to the canon ever appealed to the autho- 
rity of the decision of Laodicea as giving countenance to his 
views. 

Besides, when, thirty-three years later, the Council of Carthage 
passed the decree in which the Apocalypse is specified, no one 
regarded it as at variance with the decision of the Council of 
Laodicea, which all the Churches, both of the East and of the 
West, held in so great respect. It must unquestionably have been 
that the difference between the two councils was considered merely 
a matter of discipline regarding the lessons for the Lord's-day, 
and the order of public worship — points on which one Church 
was at liberty to differ from another. 

Lastly, there is another authentic fact which clearly proves that 
the two councils were regarded as entirely agreed on all matters of 
faith, and differing only in points of order and discipline, in which 
orthodox congregations were at perfect liberty to differ from each 
other. The fact to which we allude is what was done, at the end 
of the seventh century, at the sixth General Council, held at 
Constantinople. 4 That great assembly, consisting of 227 bishops, 
solemnly ratified, by its second canon, the acts of the Council of 
Laodicea, as well as the epistles of Athanasius, Gregory of Nazian- 
zus, and Amphilochius, (which excludes from the list of Holy 
Scriptures, as is well known, the Apocrypha,) and, at the same 

1 Against Marcion, book iv. 

2 They died respectively twelve, fifteen, and thirty-eight years afterwards, 

3 In the thirty-third year of their age. 

4 Quini-Sextum, in Trullo, 692. 



CAETHAGE. 



79 



time, ratified also the acts of the Council of Carthage. This fact 
appears to us decisive. It was impossible it could ratify the acts 
of both councils, had it not regarded the act of the Council of 
Carthage, relating to the books to be read in church, as a measure 
entirely compatible with the decree of the Council of Laodicea on 
the same subject. It follows, as we have said, that both decrees 
were clearly regarded as relating merely to a matter of discipline. 

Section III. 

THE COUNCIL OF CAETHAGE. 

91. All accounts of the Council of Carthage agree as to its 
having been held at the beginning of September 397, (" Caesario 
et Attico consulibus") It decreed, however, by its forty-seventh 
canon, " that the bishops should consult, on the tenor of their de- 
cisions, the Church beyond sea, as well as their brethren and 
colleagues, Boniface, or other bishops of the same regions." 

Now, this Boniface, the forty-third bishop of Borne, did not 
enter on his office till one-and-twenty years after the date of this 
decree. Either, therefore, this mention of the Pope must be one 
of those later interpolations with which the champions of Eome 
have disfigured nearly all their records of ecclesiastical antiquity, 
or the whole forty-seventh canon is a forgery, or (what appears 
still more probable) the forty-nine canons ascribed to the council 
belonged to it only in part, and, among others, the forty-seventh 
was enacted by some other African synod, held during the fifth 
century, and was afterwards inserted among the acts of Carthage 
by some blundering compiler, who had arranged them all according 
to his 'fancy, without any regard to their dates. 

This explanation is confirmed by anot-her act of the same 
council. Canon forty-eighth decrees that the members of the 
council should consult their brethren, Siricius and Siniplicianus, 
bishops, the one of Eome, and the other of Milan. But between 
this Siricius, to be consulted according to the forty-eighth canon, 
and Boniface, to be consulted according to the forty- seventh, 
there intervened no fewer than three popes, the first having 
died in 398, a year after the holding of the council, and the 
second having only entered on his office twenty years later, that 
is, in 418. 



so 



COUNCILS. 



92. This forty-seventh canon, however, whatever may be its real 
elate, presents to us a record of the universal mind of the churches 
of the period. In fact, it not only gives us the same list of sacred 
books as that now received by all the churches in the world, but 
enumerates them as far as the twenty-seventh in the order of our 
modern Bibles. 

As given in the edition of the Councils by Labbe and Cossart, 
(vol. ii., p. 1177, the list is as follows : — 

" Canon 47. The council has decided that, besides the canoni- 
cal Scriptures, nothing shall be read in church under the name of 
Sacred Scriptures, (Item placuit ut, prseter Scripturas canonicas, 
nihil in ecclesia legatur sub nomine Divinarum Scripturarum.) 

' The canonical Scriptures of the Old Testament are these : 



" The canonical books of the New Testament are : — The Gospels, 
four books ; the Acts of the Apostles, one book ; thirteen epistles 
of the apostle Paul ; one epistle of the same apostle to the 
Hebrews ; two epistles of the apostle Peter ; three of the apostle 
John; one of the apostle Jude ; one of James ; and one book of 
the Revelation of John, (JSfovi autem Testamenti, Evangeliorum 
libri quatuor ; Actuum Apostolorum, liber unus ; Pauli apostoli 
Epistolae, tredecim ; ejusdem ad Hebrwos, una ; Petri apostoli, 
duae ; Joannis apostoli, tres ; Judw apostoli, una; et Jacobi, 
una ; Apocalypsis Joannis, liber unus. 2 ") 

The Council adds : " This shall be communicated to our brother 
and colleague Boniface, or other bishops of those regions, 3 for the 
ratification of this canon, as we have it transmitted to us by the 

1 See also p. 106. Ineger Codex Canonum Ecclesise Africanae, Greece et Latine, 
cap. xxxiv. 

2 Kirchhofer (p. 12) and Dr Wordsworth, (Append., p. 33,) both professing to 
follow the edition of Mansi, (vol. iii., p. 891,) have omitted the Epistle of James 
But the Greek code of the canons of the African Church (c. 34) says — 'laKa>(3ov 
a.Troar6\ov fxia. With this agrees also the code in the library of Cambridge 
University, E.E. iv. 29, (Westcott, Gen. Survey on the Canon, 185.) Kirchhofer 
also gives the same canon twice in his collection, at p. 13 (according to Bruns) 
and at p. 503 (according to Gerhard von Maestricht, Brem., 1772). The epistle of 
James is wanting in the one, and is given in the other. 

3 An ancient manuscript, (vetustus codex,) says Labbe', (Consil. ii., p. 1177,) con- 
tains these words (sic habet) : — " For the ratification of this canon, let the Church 
beyond sea be consulted," (In cortfirmando isto canone, transmarina Ecclesia con- 
sidatur.) 



CAETHAGE. 



81 



Fathers that these are the books to be read in church. It shall, 
however, be allowable to read the sufferings of the martyrs in 
celebrating their anniversaries/' 

(" Hoc etiam fratri et sacerdoti 1 nostro Bonifacio vel aliis earum 
partium episcopis, pro confirniando isto canone, innotescat quia 2 
a patribus ista accepimus in ecclesia legenda. 

"Liceat enim legi passiones martyruni, cum anniversarii dies 
eorum celebrantur.") 

93. We shall have to return to what regards the Apocrypha in 
this catalogue of Carthage. To dwell on it at present would dis- 
tract our attention from the canon of the New Testament, to which 
we wish first to confine our inquiry. We shall merely remark, 
before passing on, that if this catalogue seems to differ from that 
of Laodicea about a fact, — about an expression, — the discordance, 
so far as regards the New Testament, is only apparent and exter- 
nal. As to the fact, the council decrees that those ecclesiastical 
books, the reading of which had been so often authorised by the 
ancients, but which the Council of Laodicea had thought proper 
to prohibit, should be read in the course of public worship. As 
to the expression, the council, in applying to these books the title 
canonical, employs the word in a more extended signification than 
that which it had borne during the first four centuries, and uses 
it in the sense of libri regulares, books fitted to regulate Christian 
sentiments and conduct. Such use of the term, says Cosin, was 
unknown till after the fourth century, and even then was very 
rare. We shall have occasion, further on, to explain the mind of 
the council in employing the term, as Augustin, who was present, 
(we are told,) never ceased to assert an essential difference between 
divinely-inspired scriptures and canonical books, and as he never 
appeals on this point to the decisions of the Council of Carthage, 
as if the question had been there disposed of. 3 

1 Other editions, as that of Binius, read — Et consacerdoti nostro. 

2 For quod, aa in Greek — Tvui^i/xov sgtoj or/ . . . . xr. r. 

8 See, further on, what we have said on the doctrine of Augustin. 



F 



CHAPTEK XIII. 



SUMMAEY OF ALL THE TESTIMONIES OF THE FOUETH CENTUEY. 

94. We have, then, marked, in reviewing the space we have passed 
over, that the voice of the universal Church, ever unanimous, from 
apostolic times, on the first canon, and unanimous, from the date 
of the Council of Nice, on the second, finally became, in the course 
of the fourth century, unanimous on the second-first likewise. 
The temporary and late hesitations of the Churches of the West 
regarding the Epistle to the Hebrews had already almost entirely 
disappeared; and the temporary and late hesitations of the 
Churches of the East, regarding the Apocalypse, had, from the 
early part of the fourth century, disappeared likewise. The canon 
was thus, universally and for ever, recognised in all the Churches 
of Christendom. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



VULGAR PREJUDICES WHICH A GLANCE AT THESE FACTS OUGHT 
TO HAVE REMOVED. 

95. In presenting a brief summary of these facts, it may be of 
importance to specify various erroneous notions and groundless 
fears that have too often been entertained within the Christian 
Church. The believer must be on his guard against the confused 
and delusive echoes that proceed from the schools of science, and 
which, from being repeated from mouth to mouth, finally obtain 
a usurped importance, and assume the dangerous semblances of 
scientific reality. Thus originate inveterate prejudices, laxity of 
principle, and pernicious doubts. When a smattering of science, 
with a tone of authority, has once diffused, in a Christian com- 
munity, devious opinions and inaccurate assertions, unstable minds 
allow themselves to be led away. They come to imagine that 
such and such a science, in the recesses of her sanctuary, has, 
lying before her, unquestionable facts, unanswerable discoveries, 
to overturn such and such statements of Scripture. The dupes 
feel assured that none will be found rash enough fairly to enter the 
lists with this irresistible opponent, but that all who possess even the 
slightest share of discretion, will keep as far as possible out of her 
way. The truth, however, is, that, if any one will but firmly meet 
this dreaded adversary face to face, and closely scrutinise her 
pretensions, the phantom will vanish. This has been exemplified, 
during the last two centuries, in the great question of various 
readings. It was formerly supposed by many that critical science 
had in her possession irresistible facts to combat Scripture, and 
completely overturn its authority. Yet, the result has been that 
earnest inquirers, by turning from superficial to accurate erudition, 



84 



PKEJUD1CES. 



have speedily found that the fallacies of the opponents of sound 
Christianity will not stand the test, and that all attempts to shake 
the fabric of the faith by arguments from various readings, have 
but served to make it more firm than ever. The same will be the 
case in regard to the canon. 

" We do not hesitate to maintain, without fearing the charge of 
presumption," says Dr Thiersch," 1 " that, in the whole compass of 
historical inquiry, there is not a department in which a greater 
mass of prejudices and fallacies have been adopted than in this — 
to form a system which still exercises a tyranny over minds other- 
wise highly enlightened." 

There exist, then, in connexion with the canon, erroneous 
motives and pernicious prejudices, which it is of importance to 
specify before we proceed further. The following are some of 
them : — 

96. First, Many persons speak of the list of sacred Scriptures 
as if it had furnished nothing but uncertainty to Christians for 
three centuries, and as if the Divine authority of the books of the 
New Testament had never been distinctly recognised till the end 
of the fourth. It is, however, on the contrary, an incontestible 
fact, that the first canon was, at no time, anywhere an object of 
any uncertainty to the Churches of God, and that all the writings 
of which it consists, that is, eight-ninths of the New Testament, 
were, from the moment of their appearance, and through all suc- 
ceeding ages have been, universally recognised by all the Churches 
of Christendom. 

97. Second, Many persons speak of the antilegomena, or five 
short and later epistles, which we call the second canon, and which 
form only the thirty-sixth part of the New Testament, as if they 
had not been recognised in apostolic times. This, too, is a 
mistake. They were not, it is true, universally recognised at first, 
(and we shall point out the cause ;) but, from the very first, they 
were recognised by most churches (to?? iroWofc) and by most 
(rot? TrXelcTTOLs) ecclesiastical writers. 

98. Third, People also speak of the second-first canon as if the 
two books of which it consists had not been universally received 

1 In his interesting "Essay on the Canon." "Versuch zur Vorstellung der 
historischen Standpunkte fur die Kritik der neu-testaraentlichen Sehriften." 



HESITATION AS TO SECOND CANON. 



85 



as canonical till a very late period, whereas, on the contrary, they 
were at first universally received both in the East and in the West ; 
and it was only at a later period, the commencement of the third 
century, and on grounds of pure internal criticism, (never in 
reference to external evidence,) that one of these books, always 
regarded in the East as of Divine authority, was, for a time, 
questioned in the West; and the other, always viewed as of 
Divine authority in the West, was, for a time, questioned in the 
East. 

99. Fourth, Many persons speak of this hesitation of a small 
number of churches, in reference to the antilegomena, as having 
been prolonged to an advanced period of the fourth century. 
This also is a mistake. It may be seen from all the catalogues of 
the fourth century that the discordance in question ceased in the 
churches as soon as they met by representatives in a general 
council. 

100. Fifth, Many profess to regard the hesitation of a portion 
of the primitive churches on the second canon as a fact painful 
to Christian piety. This is a very gross mistake. We will shew 
that, on the contrary, the fact, far from tending to disturb our 
faith, is fitted to strengthen it, as it clearly proves, on the one 
hand, the firmness, the holy jealousy, and unceasing vigilance 
of the primitive Christians in reference to the canon, and, on the 
other, the perfect liberty with which they examined its claims, 
sifted its peculiarities, and, in certain cases, contested its authority. 
All these circumstances prove most forcibly that if, notwithstanding 
this constant jealousy of the primitive churches, and notwithstand- 
ing the entire liberty they exercised on this head, they shewed 
themselves always so unanimous in receiving the twenty books 
that form the first canon — it was not blindly, it was not without 
examination, it was not in obedience to human authorities, that 
they did so, but that, on the contrary, it was solely because they 
had before them solid, clear, and irresistibly- convincing evidence, 
which compelled them to adopt the general decision. This is the 
only explanation that can account for so full, prompt, and universal 
an assent on the part of men so vigilant, so jealous, and so free. 

Thus the temporary existence of these very doubts on the part 
of a minority of the primitive churches contributes in two ways 



86 



PREJUDICES. 



to the confirmation of our belief.. On the one hand, their exist- 
ence proves to us that, in everywhere receiving the first twenty- 
books of the New Testament, the churches had done so be- 
cause they could not discover the slightest ground for hesitation, 
and, on the other, the universal disappearance of those same 
doubts on the subject, demonstrates in like manner that the 
churches were constrained by irresistible evidence when at length 
they universally received the second canon with the same unwaver- 
ing conviction with which they had from the beginning received 
the first. 

101. Sixth, Many, also, for the purpose of weakening the 
authority of the Scriptures, and exalting tradition, have often 
attempted to shew that the Church, during her earliest and 
brightest period, proceeded without the written word, and lived 
solely on the spoken word and tradition. This, too, is a fallacy. 
No congregation in the primitive Church ever assembled without 
the reading of the oracles of the Old Testament, which formed 
the first and principal part of the service. It was always held 
that the Holy Scriptures are " able to make the man of God per- 
fect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works, and wise unto 
salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus." 

After the example of Jesus and His apostles, the Church was 
always nourished with the written word, and by it was constantly 
strengthened in .hope and faith. Those Scriptures never ceased to 
be a lamp unto the believer's feet. " Search them," said Jesus, 
"for they testify of me/' 

102. Seventh, Many, finally, speak of the canon as if the de- 
finitive fixing of it had been the work of councils, the act of 
the Church uttering her voice by decrees. This, too, is a fallacy, 
and entirely at variance with the facts of the case. It is of 
importance to establish the truth on this point here, though we 
propose to revert to it elsewhere, when we treat of the most 
essential grounds of our belief in the canon of Scripture. 

No human authority interposed in this matter ; the determina- 
tion of it was simply and purely the offspring of conscience, 
inquiry, and liberty. The Churches of God, enlightened by 
mutual testimony, settled the canon from conviction, under the 
secret and omnipotent guidance which will ever watch over the 



NOT FIXED BY HUMAN AUTHORITY. 



87 



written word. The first canon was universally determined by the 
Churches of Christ ere any council whatever was held ; and the 
councils, when they began to be convoked, discussed every other 
point but the fixing of the canon. We shall afterwards demon- 
strate with greater precision that, for fourteen centuries, no 
general council ever pretended to fix the canon by a decree, as 
we have already shewn that even the two provincial councils of 
Laodicea and Carthage, too frequently appealed to as having 
established the canon by enactments, cannot be justly regarded as 
having come to an authoritative decision on the question that 
now occupies our attention. 

The reader may be here referred to the works of Lardner, who 
proves, by long quotations from the Fathers, that the canon of the 
New Testament was never settled authoritatively. 1 Basnage may 
be consulted, who devotes three chapters to the same thesis in his 
History of the Church. 2 Kead Le Clerc, who, in his Ecclesiastical 
History, under the years 29 and 100, says, " There was no 
occasion for a council of grammarians to declare authoritatively 
which are the genuine works of Cicero or of Virgil. In like man- 
ner, the authenticity of the Gospels was established and maintained 
without any decree of the rulers of the Church. The same re- 
mark applies to the apostolic epistles. They owe all their autho- 
rity, not to the decision of any ecclesiastical assembly, but to 
the concurrent testimony of all Christians, and to the tenor of 
their contents." 

Augustin said, thirteen centuries before Le Clerc — " We know 
which are the writings of the apostles in the same way as we 
know which are the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Varro, and 
others ; and as we know which are the writings of other ecclesias- 
tical authors — from the testimony of their contemporaries, and of 
persons who lived in the ages that successively followed/' 

Let it suffice here to say, that the ancient Fathers, in forming 
their decisions on the canon, appealed solely to the free and un- 
varying testimony of the churches ; while, at the same time, they 
added a careful scrutiny of the books they were invited to receive. 

1 Supplement, p. 50-52, Second Part, vol. i. ; vol. vi., pp. 325, 381 ; vol. ii., pp. 
325, 496, 529, 576 ; vol. viii., pp. 102, 225, 268 ; voL x., pp. 193, 207, 208. 
3 Book viii., chaps, v., vi., and vii. 



88 



PEEJUDICES. 



In giving in their catalogue, they never pretend to publish them 
either as results of their own discoveries, or of the decisions of 
any authority whatever. They record the mind of preceding 
ages — the unbiased testimony of the primitive Christians — the 
evidence they had received from their predecessors by continuous 
transmission from the days of the apostles. 

Origen, who was born 142 years before the Council of Nice, 
does not, in putting forth his catalogue of the canonical Scrip- 
tures, (to)v ivhiaQnic&v ypcMpcov,) confirm it by a reference to the 
decisions of any council, but merely to the testimony of the early 
Christians, (ol apyaloi av$pe$,) and to uninterrupted historical 
evidence, (&>? iv irapahocreL paOdw) His words have been pre- 
served to us by Eusebius, who adds, in quoting his testimony as 
to the Gospels : " Origen follows tradition and the ecclesiastical 
canon ; 1 and he testifies that only four Gospels have been unani- 
mously received by all the churches under heaven." 2 

Eusebius himself, in expressing his mind on the books of the 
New Testament, and on their division into books universally 
received and books controverted, makes no reference to any 
authority or any council, but presents his catalogue as resting on 
ecclesiastical tradition, (jcara rrjv ifc/c\r)crta<TTiKr)v irapdhocnv^) 3 
Athanasius, likewise, who was born in the year 296, puts forth his 
catalogue, identical with ours, as grounded on " testimony com- 
municated to the Fathers by those who had been eye-witnesses 
and ministers of the word from the beginning." 4 But he does 
not refer to any council, and merely enumerates the books that 
were recognised as forming the canon, handed down and held as 
of Divine authority. 5 

Not one author, either of the fourth, or fifth, or sixth century, 
appeals, on the subject of the canon, to the decisions of any 
council. Thus, when Cyril, patriarch of Jerusalem, who was born 
(it is believed) twenty years after Athanasius, gives us his cata- 

1 Hist. Eccl., vi. 25 — Tbv \yLvXr\Gia.(S7i%h Qu^urruv xavom. 

2 "A nctl (JjOvcc dm^r/^rd h tJj b-irh rbv ovguvbv ixxXqff'ux, rou 

3 Hist. Eccl., iii. 25 — oi raurctg vctgadovnc, 

4 Festive Epistle, xxxix. — Ka6u>g <ua^ho6av roTg vrargdifiv, 

* Ta xavov^ofMiva xai ffagadoQ'svra, wioreuQ'evra, re 6sTa that /3//3X/a. 



CANON NOT DEPENDENT ON COUNCILS. 



89 



logue of inspired books, 1 he refers to no council, and only appeals 
to " the apostles, and the ancient bishops who presided over the 
churches, and transmitted to us those books as inspired/' 2 

Likewise, when Augustin, about the end of the same century, 
or rather the beginning of the fifth, wrote an answer to certain 
persons who had inquired of him "which books were truly 
canonical," he simply referred to the testimony of the various 
churches of Christendom, and not to any council whatever. 3 

Likewise, when Eufinus, a presbyter of Aquileia, about the year 
340, gives his catalogue, (also identical with ours,) he simply 
professes to present "the tradition of their ancestors, who had 
transmitted these books to the churches of Christ, as divinely 
inspired," and he declares that he gives it just as he had copied it 
from the records of the Fathers. 4 

Lastly, when Cassiodorus, a Roman consul in the sixth century, 
gives us three catalogues of the books of the New Testament, 
(one from Jerome, another from Augustin, and another from an 
ancient version,) he, too, makes no reference to any decree or to 
any council. 5 

Let it, then, be no longer said that the authority of councils 
fixed the canons of Scripture. It was, indeed, fixed; but the 
authority of councils had nothing to do with it. It was the will 
of God that Christians individually, and Christian congregations, 
enlightened by the testimony of successive generations of believers, 
should form their opinions on the subject of the canon with 
entire liberty of judgment, that the authenticity of the sacred 
books might be rendered more manifest. 

We shall afterwards examine this important fact under another 
point of view. But the evidence here given will suffice to shew 
how erroneous and how entirely at variance with facts it would 
be to persist in seeking for the origin or settlement of the canon 
in any ecclesiastical decree. 

1 at Qco-vsvsroi y%u<pa.i. 
a Catech., iv., 33. 

3 De Doctrina Christiana, lib. ii., vol. iii., Part i., p. 47. Edit. Paris, 1836. (He 
began this book in 397, and finished it in 407.) See also Lardner, vol. x., p. 207. 

4 In Symb. Apost., p. 26 — " Qudo secundum majorum traditionem per ipsum 
Spiritum Sanctum inspirita creduntur et ecclesiis Christi tradita, competens videatur 
in hoc loco evidenti numero sicut ex Patrum monumentis accessimus designare." 

8 Lardner, vol. xi., p. 303— Cassiod, De Institutione Divinar. Litterar., cap. xi. 



CHAPTER XV. 



INFERENCE FEOM ALL THE TESTIMONIES OF THE FIEST 
FOUR CENTURIES. 

103. Three cardinal facts and three important questions result 
from this lengthened review, and the combined testimonies of 
these fourteen catalogues, the bequest of four centuries, and of 
which the first was put forth at the death of John, about the end 
of the first century ; the second at the death of Irenseus and of 
Clement of Alexandria, about the end of the second century ; the 
next at the approach of the fall of Roman paganism, about the 
end of the third century ; and the eleven others, during the fourth, 
between the time of Eusebius and the death of Gregory of Nazian- 
zus, or the Council of Carthage. 

104. In the first place, from the first fact — the constant and 
universal unanimity of the Churches in maintaining the twenty 
books of the first canon, this striking fact confirmed from cen- 
tury to century, and denied by none — arises the first question : On 
what is this constant, free, marvellous, universal unanimity 
grounded \ How was it produced ? 

The answer to this question will form the subject of our Second 
Book. It will confirm our reliance in the full authenticity of the 
first canon ; it will increase our respect for the Holy Scriptures, 
and dispose us to submit more implicitly to their guidance. 

105. Along with this first fact, another presents itself, which is, 
that, besides the twenty books of the first canon, the two epistles 
which form the second-first canon shared, from their first appear- 
ance till the middle of the third century, the same universal re- 
cognition as the homologoumena. This second fact gives rise to 



INFERENCES. 



01 



this second question : Whence originated the objections to these 
two books after that period \ "What were the nature and extent 
of these objections, and how was the authenticity of the second- 
first canon established after this subsequent and temporary oppo- 
sition ? 

The answer to this second question will be the subject of our 
Third Book. 

106. Lastly, from the same testimonies results a third fact of 
no less importance, which is, that the five brief epistles, forming 
the second canon, and amounting to only a thirty-sixth of the 
New Testament, though received by most churches, were not, 
however, received by all, and were universally recognised as of 
Divine authority only from the date of the Council of Nice, twenty- 
five years after the close of the third century. Hence arises the 
third and last question : How is it possible that the antilegomena, 
if they are authentic, should not have been received from the 
period of the death of the apostles ? How did they come to be 
received ultimately, and how does it happen that the partial oppo- 
sition they experienced does not invalidate their authenticity, and 
even detract from the perfect certainty attributed to the other 
books of the canon \ 

The answer to the various aspects of this question will form the 
subject of our Fourth Book. Afterwards, as we have said, we 
shall, in Part Second, enter on a field totally different, and present 
to our readers a novel class of proofs, in our estimation, still more 
cogent, in support of the canon. 

We now pass on to Book Second. 



BOOK II 

OF THE FIKST CANON— HISTOEICAL BASIS OF ITS 
AUTHENTICITY. 



107. The perfect authenticity of the first canon is founded on 
such an assemblage of proofs that the literary history of ancient 
times cannot furnish a similar instance of complete and irresistible 
evidence. Accordingly, it was at first our intention to dispense 
with the formal demonstration of so manifest a truth. The 
iLomologoumena, we felt, are impregnable in point of testimony ; 
and the only object we proposed to ourselves in the present work 
was to establish on a solid basis the authenticity of the antilego- 
mena. Our labours are intended for the benefit of such earnest 
believers as, notwithstanding their faith in Divine revelation, are 
troubled with objections erroneously supposed to be derived from 
science, and, in consequence, require to have their views settled by 
the testimony of science itself more accurately consulted. We 
afterwards became convinced that a glance at the irresistible evi- 
dence in favour of the first canon would aid inquirers in per- 
ceiving the authenticity of the antilegomena also, and serve to 
strengthen our faith in the entire canon. 

108. Our readers have already seen, in Book First, and will be 
pleased to keep in mind, in perusing Book Second, that nearly all 



94 



THE FIRST CANON. 



the arguments in support of the first canon, so far as regards the 
first two centuries of the Church, equally apply to the two books 
of the second-first canon ; that Eusebius himself had, accordingly, 
classed them among the homologoumena. 

We shall begin with the proof so clearly flowing from the primi- 
tive, constant, and universal unanimity of all the Churches, in re- 
gard to these twenty-two books. 



CHAPTER I. 



FI EST GREAT HISTORICAL FACT — THE COMPLETE AND UNVARYING 
UNANIMITY OF THE CHURCHES. 

109. The simple review, contained in Book First, of all the au- 
thentic catalogues bequeathed to science by the early ages of the 
Church, must vividly strike every attentive inquirer. 

Fourteen catalogues, at least, have been furnished us by the 
three centuries immediately succeeding the death of the apostles. 
We say at least, because to these might be added two others, 
known as the catalogue of Amphilochius and the Muratori docu- 
ment. 1 All these, taken together, constitute the concurrent testi- 
mony of the most learned and the most venerable men both of the 
East and of the West. This testimony, too, is not, on their part, 
a mere expression of individual conviction, but a public utterance 
of the mind of the Christian community. It is a unanimous re- 
cognition of a great historical fact, a fact uncontested and uncon- 
testable — the witness of all the Churches in the world regarding 
the first canon. Such, we say, is the voice of all preceding ages, 
the voice of the whole Christian people, from the days of the 
apostles — a voice invariably precise, clear, and unhesitating. We 
have listened to all the traditions of ancient times to ascertain 
whether even one discordant sound might reach us from within 
the compass of the ancient Church, and we have been able to per- 
ceive none. We have looked across the expanse of ages to descry 
aught that might warrant even the slightest doubt, and the eye has 
not discovered, from the one extremity of the vast horizon to the 
other, even the most minute speck of contradiction, much less any 
" cloud, even of the size of a man's hand." 

1 See our Propositions, 31, 61, 78, 82, and 191-196. 



96 



THE TWENTY-TWO BOOKS. 



And what sort of witnesses to attest to us the mind of their 
age were an Origen, a Eusebius, an Athanasius, a Cyril, a Gregory 
of Nazianzus, a Jerome, an Epiphanius, an Augustin ? Did ever 
witnesses exist that had better means of information, were more 
competent to judge, more worthy of credence ? They occupied the 
most elevated positions ; they were spread over all parts of the 
known world, and at great distances from each other. Some of 
them were on the banks of the Euphrates or of the Nile, or of the 
Save or the Rhone ; others were on the coasts of the African 
Syrtis, or on those of the Euxine. Who more worthy of credence ? 
They had nearly all suffered for the gospel ; nearly all had hearts 
so imbued with so fervent a love for the Holy Scriptures, that they 
had shewn themselves willing to die in their defence. All of them 
were so sincere and so fearless in their inquiries as to announce 
without reserve all they knew. They spontaneously inform us that, 
besides the homologoumena, there are five brief epistles of a later 
date than the rest, which, though received by most people, were 
doubted by some ; while, as to the other twenty books, they tell us 
that no hesitation regarding any of them had ever been heard of in 
any church in the world. Were there ever witnesses more discern- 
ing or better acquainted with the facts of the case ? They were all 
men of learning ; all profoundly versed in the Scriptures ; all had 
travelled for the interests of the Word of God, both in the East 
and in the West. They had visited Rome and Alexandria, Constan- 
tinople, and Jerusalem ; they had met in the councils ; and they all 
possessed so extensive and accurate an acquaintance with Christian 
antiquity that, in this respect, modern scholars are but children in 
comparison. What a witness, for instance, at the commencement 
of the fourth century, or end of the third, was a Eusebius, who, in 
order to draw up, in 324, his history of the origin and progress 
of Christianity, made himself master of the whole field of ancient 
literature ; ransacked the libraries collected at Csesarea by Pam- 
philus, and at Alexandria by Alexander ; and read all the writings, 
now lost, of Aristion, Quadratus, Aristides, Hegesippus, Papias, 
Tatian, and Melito, of which modern scholars hardly know any- 
thing except through Origen. What a witness, likewise, a hundred 
years before Eusebius, was an Origen, " he of brazen entrails," as 
he has been called, who, from the end of the second century, de- 



OVERWHELMING TESTIMONY. 



97 



voted all the energies of his genius to scriptural researches, and 
who had been himself a disciple of Clement of Alexandria, whose 
birth was only forty years later than the death of the apostle John. 

110. From this imposing evidence may be drawn the following 
four conclusions : — 

1st. Where so large a number of persons, so well informed, so 
sincere, and so unshackled, tell us from all parts of the world, 
that, after having carefully studied the history of the churches 
of God, from the days of the apostles, they were not able to dis- 
cover among Christian communities, till the beginning of the 
third century, the slightest difference of opinion regarding the 
authority of all the books of the first canon ; we must admit 
that all antiquity does not present to us a single historical fact 
so completely established as this unvarying unanimity of the 
churches. 

2d. This unanimity is so complete as to exclude the very 
possibility that a single book of the homologoumena would have 
obtained such recognition had it not been originally received during 
the lives of the apostles, and under their sanction. 

3d. It would, in like manner, have been absolutely impossible, 
after the death of the apostles, for so many thousand churches, 
spread over all the earth, to have immediately consented to receive 
into their canon any additional book, even had that book been 
previously received by a large portion of the churches on the 
best evidence of its apostolic authenticity, as was afterwards 
the case with the antilegomena. Such a book could never have 
obtained reception in so many thousand churches in Egypt, Asia 
Minor, Mesopotamia, Greece, Spain, Africa, Italy, and Gaul, 
without encountering for a long time scruples, opposition, and 
reservations, the sound of which would have reached the ears of 
such men as Origen, Cyril, Athanasius, and Eusebius. 

4th. If such a posthumous reception into all the churches on 
earth has been accomplished in regard to the antiler/omena, so as 
to silence all opposition, this fact, in the highest degree improbable 
till it actually took place, can only be humanly accounted for by 
the overflowing evidence that these books, though late in being 
universally received, were found to possess in their favour. 

111. But if, shortly after the death of the apostles, an attempt 

G 



98 



THE TWENTY-TWO BOOKS. 



had been made to interpolate the primitive canon of twenty-two 
books communicated to all contemporaneous churches by the 
apostles themselves, and to effect the posthumous insertion of 
some additional book ; it is impossible to admit that such addi- 
tional book, though recognised by most of the churches, could 
have been at once unanimously received to the ends of the earth. 
The very supposition is such as no man in his senses could enter- 
tain. It would, if possible, be still more absurd to imagine that 
such a book could, after the death of the apostles, have obtained 
universal admission into the canon, even in churches the most 
independent of each other, without resistance, without discussion, 
without objection, and without delay ; and all this in such a 
manner as to leave no trace to indicate that any resistance or 
objection had ever been made. To fancy that in such a manner 
an additional book could have found admission into the list of 
apostolic writings, and even have the same rank assigned it, 
would be pushing our hypothesis beyond all the limits of possi- 
bility. 

Yet it is necessary to admit all this, if the primitive recognition 
of the twenty-two homologoumena did not take place before the 
decease of the apostles, and during their active ministry. 

112. It is thus established by irresistible historic evidence that 
not one of the homologoumena was received into the canon after 
the death of the apostles. 



CHAPTEE II. 



THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE TWENTY-TWO HOMOLOGOUMENA OF 
THE NEW TESTAMENT IS ESTABLISHED BY INCOMPAEABLY 
STRONGEE EVIDENCE THAN WHAT EXISTS IN FAVOUE OF 
THE AUTHENTICITY OF ANY OTHER BOOK OF ANTIQUITY 
WHATEVER. 

113. With this majestic unanimity of evidence before us we 
can fearlessly maintain that in the whole compass of ancient 
literature there is not a book to be at all compared to our first 
canon, as to the complete demonstration of its authenticity. 
History does not present a similar instance of literary evidence. 
Should any doubt the accuracy of this assertion, let him mention 
a single book in favour of the authenticity of which a tenth part 
of the same proof can be produced. "The testimony to its 
genuineness," says Michaelis, " is infinitely superior, and that in 
numerous respects, to anything that ancient literature could pre- 
sent to us in favour even of the most abundantly-attested books." 

The immense inequality, in such comparison, will appear from 
ten or eleven peculiarities. 

114. Even the most eminent profane works were addressed 
merely to individuals, by authors unconnected with each other ; 
and most frequently they were not addressed to any person at 
all. The writings of the New Testament, on the contrary, were 
addressed by the apostles to the churches of their time ; that is, 
by eight public personages to large associations of individuals by 
whom they were known, and whom they knew, spread over the 
earth, permanently settled, unrestrained, connected with the 
apostles, and with each other, by the closest relations, and the 
most sacred ties. 



100 



THE TWENTY-TWO BOOKS 



This is the first powerful guarantee of authenticity exclusively 
belonging to the writings of the New Testament. 

115. Even the most authentic and the most distinguished 
works of antiquity, how eagerly soever they may have been 
welcomed by contemporary readers, never awakened among them 
anything at all to be compared to the intensity of interest with 
which the primitive Christians received the Scriptures. To the 
readers of heathen works it was of no great importance to be 
preserved from error respecting the genuineness of the books, and 
the identity of the author. Their endeavours to ascertain the 
real authorship would naturally correspond to the amount of the 
interest at stake. They risked but little in falling into a mistake 
in regard to Tacitus, Pliny, Plutarch, or Cicero. All their efforts 
to find out the real truth in the matter would be limited. But 
the case was very different with the primitive Christians to whom 
were communicated, in the name of the apostles, the books in 
which these holy men had spoken under the impulse of the Holy 
Spirit. It was a vital question whether or not any particular 
book was written by any of the apostles or prophets on whom 
the Church of the living God is built as its foundation, Jesus 
Christ himself being the chief corner stone. 1 For these living 
oracles every believer was ready to endure the extreme of tor- 
ture. His Christianity, his faith, his salvation, were involved in 
the trial. 

This is the second powerful guarantee belonging exclusively to 
the Sacred Scriptures. 

116. When the writings of heathen antiquity made their ap- 
pearance, their contemporaneous readers, for the most part, were 
neither eye-witnesses nor competent judges of the facts those 
works report. Our sacred books, on the contrary, appeal to facts 
which the whole primitive Church and every individual believer 
could verify by the evidence of the senses. Living witnesses, actors 
in the work, ministers known for twenty years to all contemporary 
Christendom, miracles performed in their own days, congregations 
who had been present when they were performed, prophecies, 
gifts of tongues, cures that continued to be wrought during the 



1 Eph. ii. 2-20. 



COMPAEED WITH THE CLASSICS. 



101 



lives of the apostles, 1 and during the succeeding generation, that 
is, till the commencement of the second century. 

This is the third guarantee, rendering all mistake in the pri- 
mitive churches on the subject of the canon a matter of impossi- 
bility. 

117. The productions of ancient literature which have come 
down to our times were put forth without the aid of any associa- 
tion of men specially intrusted with the task of verifying their 
origin and watching over their transmission. The books of the 
New Testament had for these purposes the churches and their 
bishops, on the one hand, and, on the other, the college of apostles, 
whose long career extended to the end of the first century. Paul 
alone had disseminated the gospel from Arabia to Jerusalem, 
from Jerusalem to Illyria, and beyond Illyria to Italy, and, perhaps, 
further west, 2 encumbered as he was daily with the care of all the 
churches. 3 Peter was for thirty years at the head of the evan- 
gelisation of the circumcised, as Paul was in respect to the, cir- 
cumcised, 4 and John, till the commencement of the second century, 
had the superintendence of the churches of Asia. 

This is the fourth guarantee of authenticity, entirely wanting in 
favour of the most incontestable writings of heathen antiquity. 

118. The most celebrated works of the ancient world were, no 
doubt, perused by contemporaries with eagerness ; but their popu- 
larity was subsequently transferred to other productions no less 
valued, and they were consigned to neglect for ages. But how 
different was the case with the Holy Scriptures of the New Tes- 
tament ! Believers continued to refer to them unceasingly, copied 
them with their own hands, earnestly and constantly studied 
them ; the most barbarous tribes learned to read only in order 
to become minutely acquainted with their contents ; the followers 
of Christ meditated on them day and night 5 from generation to 
generation, for, since the days of David, such was ever the practice 
of " the righteous," who unceasingly made the Scriptures the light, 
the guide, and the consolation of their lives. 

This forms a fifth guarantee of authenticity, belonging exclu- 
sively to the sacred canon. 

1 See Gal. iii. 2; Acts xix. 2; 1 Cor. xiv. 27. 8 Eom. xv. 19, 24. 

3 2 Cor. xi. 28. 4 Gal. ii. 8, 9. 5 Ps. i. 1-3. 



102 



THE TWENTY-TWO BOOKS 



119. The writings even of the most eminent of the ancients 
might in a brief space of time disappear and be lost, without ex- 
citing great emotion on the part of any one, and, in this manner, 
in fact, have perished a great number of the finest works of 
antiquity, even of such as were at first preserved with the greatest 
care : the Hortensius of Cicero, nearly the whole of Varro, the 
works even of Menander, which almost everybody knew by heart, 
those of Ennius and of Pacuvius, three-fourths of Livy, the great 
history of Sallust, the greatest part of Tacitus, the books of Pliny 
the Elder on the war in Germany, the last part of the Fasti of 
Ovid, sixty books of the Eoman History of Dio Cassius, twenty- 
five books of the Bibliotheca of Diodorus Siculus, and nearly the 
whole of Polybius. Greatly as these works were valued by an- 
tiquity, they have been lost. Such, however, could not have been 
the case with our sacred books, for, besides the eagerness of 
every Christian to possess a copy of them, they were preserved in 
innumerable places of worship in all parts of the world, and all 
true ministers of Jesus Christ, as history testifies, were at all 
times ready to surrender their lives rather than be deprived of the 
Scriptures. 

This forms the sixth guarantee of authenticity, exclusively be- 
longing to the canonical Scriptures. 

120. In regard to most even of the masterpieces of antiquity 
they were not translated into various languages till many ages 
after their first appearance. The books of the New Testament, 
on the contrary, were, at the beginning of the second, and even 
before the close of the first, translated into all the principal lan- 
guages of the East. They were translated first into Syriac, then 
into Arabic, Coptic, Sahidic, Armenian, Persian, and afterwards 
into Ethiopian. In the West, they were translated first into 
Latin, afterwards into Gothic, Sclavonic, Celtic, and Anglo-Saxon. 
We have already spoken of the Peshito and its high antiquity. A 
Latin version was made during the earliest days of the Church. 
It is believed that the Vetus Itala, in common use till the time 
of Jerome, was completed before the end of the first century, and 
we find Tertullian already quoting it towards the end of the second. 

Such, then, is a seventh guarantee of authenticity, exclusively 
belonging to the canonical Scriptures. 



RECOGNISED BY THEIR ASSAILANTS. 



103 



121. The productions of ancient literature did not give rise, 
like the books of the New Testament, to controversies almost con- 
temporaneous, the sound of which, reaching our own times, serve 
indirectly, but, for that very reason more forcibly, to establish 
their authenticity. As to the books of the New Testament, on the 
contrary, the very attacks against them serve to prove the anterior 
existence of the canon, the apostolicity of its authors, and its re- 
ception by the primitive Christians, so that the earliest unbelievers 
and the earliest heretics attest with irresistible force, by their very 
hostility, the apostolic authenticity of our sacred books. In com- 
bating the doctrines of the Scriptures, these enemies recognise 
the respective writers, and unconsciously and unintentionally bear 
witness to future ages that these books were, previously to their 
attacks, already revered by the whole Christian Church as the 
code of its faith. They contest their teaching, but not their 
authenticity. They reject them as erroneous, but not as spurious. 
They load them with odious abuse, but, at the same time, admit 
them to be written by the apostles whose names they bear. 

We shall return to this subject more in detail ; but it was 
necessary to make brief reference to it at this stage, as the inci- 
dental testimony of enemies is, perhaps, of more weight than that 
of all the orthodox Fathers. 

Such is an eighth guarantee of authenticity, to which there 
exists nothing equivalent in favour of any other production of 
literary antiquity. 

122. Even the most distinguished writings of the ancients 
are comparatively little quoted by the authors of succeeding ages. 
With our Holy Scriptures the case is quite otherwise. Quoted, 
commented on, interpreted, employed to furnish texts of sermons, 
by an uninterrupted series of ecclesiastical writers, they might, 
had they been lost, have been, as Lardner remarks, entirely recon- 
structed from the quotations contained in the writings of early 
Christian authors. The works of the whole series of Fathers 
would almost seem intended to furnish materials for this very 
purpose. We have already spoken of the immense labours of 
Origen on the whole of the Scriptures. Irenaeus, before him, 
during the second century, in Gaul, copiously quoted from every 
one of the homologoumena. Clement of Alexandria, during the 



THE TWENTY-TWO BOOKS 



same period, quoted them in Egypt. As for Tertullian, who was 
born about the middle of the second century, he so copiously 
quoted by name all the books of the first canon, and of the second- 
first, in Africa, that, according to the remark of Lardner, were 
we to collect all the passages of the New Testament quoted in his 
writings, their amount would be greater than all the quotations 
made from Cicero during two thousand years by all writers that 
are known to exist. 

Such is the ninth special guarantee of the authenticity of the 
New Testament. 

123. There is a tenth peculiarity which of itself would constitute 
an immense distinction between the writings of the New Testament 
and all the other literary productions of antiquity. The latter were 
perused, however, extensively by individuals detached from each 
other, and the reading of them thus furnished no collective guaran- 
tee for their authenticity. The Holy Scriptures, on the contrary, 
were, from the days of the apostles, read by permanent associations 
established for the purpose, — -read uninterruptedly from week to 
week and from day to day — read in every country then known — 
read so repeatedly that often individual believers knew them all by 
heart— read invariably, in a word, during worship, from the days 
of the apostles, as they are still read at the present day, and as 
they will continue to be read in every living church till the day 
that Jesus Christ shall appear from the heavens. 

This tenth guarantee, more strong, perhaps, than all the rest, 
will again require our attention more in detail. 

124 Lastly, there is a further circumstance of emphatic signi- 
ficance in favour of the New Testament, which does not apply to 
the documents of classic antiquity. In connexion with these, 
there existed no continuous order of earnest guardians, jealously 
occupied in verifying their authenticity, and watching, with a holy 
severity, in order to exclude all books that were doubtful, and 
give their sanction to no one till its authenticity was fully 
established. In regard to the Scriptures, on the contrary, we 
can trace from the days of the apostles the uninterrupted exist- 
ence of such a body of examiners and guardians. 

A close attention to the history of the churches will shew that, 
from the commencement, they were in possession of twenty-two 



CAKEFULLY GUARDED. 



105 



books, received during the lives of the apostles/and that not the 
slightest opposition to any of these in any church whatever was 
heard of during two centuries ; that, however, during the same 
period, five short letters, addressed to certain individuals or certain 
churches, were not received unanimously, though recognised by 
the majority, (jfXe tWot?,) but were, in certain parts of the world, 
regarded, for a time, as doubtful. This reserve, freely maintained 
in reference to a very small portion of the canon, (the thirty-sixth,) 
gives additional force to the unanimous assent accorded to all the 
rest. " From the close of the first century/' says Dr Tiersch, 1 in his 
useful work on the canon, " the churches henceforth left to them- 
selves, and more than ever jealous of the sacred deposit, shewed 
themselves watchful to prevent innovations, and actuated by a 
thoroughly conservative spirit, and determined to regard the col- 
lection of genuine scriptures as for ever closed, till they obtained 
the fullest evidence that such and such a late epistle, which had 
long been held as apostolic by a great number of churches, was 
really of Divine authority." Still they did not venture to issue 
a decision of their own regarding its authenticity, and admit it into 
the canon, notwithstanding the mind of the majority in its favour, 
but confined themselves to declaring, that not having received it 
at their foundation, they waited, in perfect liberty, for fuller proofs 
on the subject. It was thus that, on the one hand, their admirable 
firmness in regard to the first canon, and, on the other, their 
holy vigilance and increasing jealousy in reference to the second, 
furnish us with one and the same testimony, and equally serve 
to confirm our belief. 

Had their not been in some churches more or less hesitation 
in regard to the late epistles, there might have been ground for 
suspecting that there existed on their part too much facility and 
indifference in receiving and transmitting the canon. But the 
difficulty felt, for two centuries, by a portion of the churches 
regarding these five epistles, — that holy slowness to receive them, 
joined to their dread of rejecting them, — that prudent and yet re- 
spectful disposition which for a time neither ventured to condemn 
nor to sanction them, — that long and scrupulous hesitation, suffi- 

1 Chap. iv. — Versuch zur WiederhersteUung des hist. Standpunlcts fiir die Krili'c 
der N. T. Schriften. 1845. 



106 



THE TWENTY-TWO BOOKS. 



ciently indicates" the wisdom with which they acted, the liberty 
with which they examined, and the mature deliberation that pre- 
ceded their decision. 

These striking facts, then, all taken together, bestow new force 
on the unshaken and unanimous testimony to the first canon. 

] 25. What has already been said might be sufficient for com- 
pletely establishing our thesis, and justifying us in fearlessly 
asserting that this unanimity of all the churches in the world, 
combined with all the incomparable circumstances accompanying 
it, gives the first canon, or rather the twenty-two homologoumena, 
a certainty unequalled by any in the whole compass of ancient 
literature. 

Complete, however, as the evidence here produced may already 
be, it is of importance to exhibit it in a still stronger light, by 
pointing out the causes of so marvellous an agreement. To what 
human circumstances is this great historical phenomenon to be 
attributed? This is the question we are going to examine in 
the following pages ; and the inquiry will open up new sources 
of evidence to confirm the authenticity of our canon. 

We shall first examine, in the following chapter, three other 
historical facts, which, while they illustrate the character of the 
primitive Church, explain to us how the astonishing unanimity of 
the people of God all over the world, in reference to the first 
canon, came to be so promptly established. 



CHAPTEE III. 



THEEE CAUSES, ESPECIALLY, PRODUCED THIS PROVIDENTIAL 
UNANIMITY. 

Section. I. 

THE LONG CAREER OF THE APOSTLES. 

126. The first leading fact which pre-eminently affected the cha- 
racter and condition of the primitive Church, and which was neces- 
sary to produce throughout the whole Christian community the 
unanimity to which we refer, was the great length of the career of 
the apostles, notwithstanding the unceasing toils of their lives, and 
the numberless perils of their ministry. This fact appears still 
more remarkable when we consider their position in the world, " as 
sheep among wolves." "Alway delivered unto death for Jesus' 
sake," as they themselves tell us ; " persecuted, but not forsaken, 
cast down, but not destroyed," "accounted as sheep for the 
slaughter," they were nearly all, by the providence of God, spared 
for a ministry of thirty, fifty, and sixty years. 

127. From the earliest ages of the world, God, we perceive, 
whenever He intended to effect any great and enduring revival, 
always took care to bestow a long career on the individuals ap- 
pointed to accomplish it, and thus granted to them the necessary 
time to consummate and consolidate the work. 

After driving man from Paradise, He granted to each of the 
early patriarchs a life of nearly nine hundred years, to enable 
them to maintain among their children's children, to the twentieth 
generation, the knowledge of the fall and of the promise. The 
son of Enoch, who had been for two centuries and a half a con- 



108 



CAUSES OF UNANIMITY. 



temporary of Adam, was likewise, for nearly six centuries, a 
contemporary of Noah, appointed to be to a new world "the 
preacher of that righteousness which is by faith." When the 
earth had been purified by the deluge, God thought proper to 
spare Noah for three centuries and a half more to instruct the 
new generations that sprung from his loins ; and preserved Shem, 
Noah's second son for seventy-five years, to the call of Abraham, 
the father of believers. At a later period, when God brought His 
people out of Egypt, to give them their institutions, laws, and 
promises of grace, He added forty years to the venerable age of 
Moses, and likewise twenty-four years to that of Joshua, the son 
of Nun, that these two great men might have full time — the one 
in the desert, and the other in Canaan — to train Israel to the 
new discipline of the written Word. When, at the end of the 
rule of the Judges, He resolved, as a preparation for the line of 
the prophets, to effect that revival in which " all the house of 
Israel lamented after the Lord," He placed at the head of the 
nation, for fifty years, the prophet Samuel. When He introduced 
the regal order, and the temple worship, He gave Israel two pro- 
phet-kings, each of whom reigned forty years. When, finally, He 
determined to rally His people round His Word of Life in their 
Babylonish captivity, He preserved to them Daniel for seventy 
years. If we come down to more recent times, we shall perceive 
that, in like manner, at the holy Reformation of His Church 
through the gospel, God gave to the churches of Germany, on 
the one hand, and to those of Geneva and France, on the other, 
thirty years of the ministry of Luther, thirty years of that of Cal- 
vin, thirty-three of that of Farel, and forty-six of that of Beza. 

128. Now, if such an arrangement was so often required to ac- 
complish id the Church great changes decreed from on high, it was 
especially required in the first century when God was to constitute 
the Christian people among the Jews and among the Gentiles, 
intrusting to believers for all succeeding ages the oracles of the 
New Testament, and impressing on the whole Christian community, 
in the vast renovation that was taking place, a powerful and ma- 
jestic unity. It was necessary that the apostles, appointed to 
this great work, should be granted a long life for the purpose of 
watching, continuously and in concert, under the guidance of the 



LOXG CAEEEE OF APOSTLES. 



109 



Holy Spirit, over the progress of the churches, the arrangements 
of their worship, and, above all, the universal reception of the 
Holy Scriptures. It was necessary that the churches, duly exer- 
cised in the life of faith previously to the decease of the apostles, 
should be left, till Christ's second coming, to the sole direction of 
the Holy Spirit and the written word. And this is what took 
place. 

129. With the single exception of the brother of John, James 
the Greater, (who suffered martyrdom by order of Herod Agrippa 
only ten years after the ascension of our Saviour,) all the apostles 
exercised a very long ministry in the Church. 

James the Less, the brother of our Lord,, and the first of the 
three pillars of the primitive Church, (Gal. i. 18,) remained eight 
and twenty years at the head of the churches of the circumcision, 
and died only in the year 62 ; and yet all the other apostles sur- 
vived him, some of them even thirty and some forty years. 
Esteemed by the Jews, and styled by them " the Just," he was so 
revered that the Talmud mentions certain miracles "wrought by 
James, the disciple of Jesus the carpenter ; " and Josephus, relating, 
according to his own notions, James's martyrdom, (Antiq. xx. 8,) 
declares that the wisest of the nation deplored his death as one of 
the principal causes of the ruin of Jerusalem, and of the wrath of 
God against the Jews. Simeon, who was, like him, one of the 
brothers of the Lord, became, as historians inform us, 1 bishop of 
Jerusalem immediately after the death of James, and, if the state- 
ment of Eusebius be correct, was crucified in 107, when much 
more than one hundred years old, after having presided over the 
Christians in Jerusalem during forty-five years. Peter and Paul 
superintended the churches of the Gentiles as well as those of the 
Jews, during a ministry of thirty years and more ; for we must fix 
the martyrdom of both between the burning of Pome in July 64 
and the death of Nero in June 68. Besides, it appears that most 
of the apostles attained a still greater age. Though we cannot 
place entire confidence in the too varied traditions of the Fathers, 
according to whom Mark died at Alexandria in 68, Timothy in 
97, Thomas and Bartholomew in India, Jude in Lybia, Matthew, 



1 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., iii., 2, 32, 11. 



110 



CAUSES OF UNANIMITY. 



according to Eufinus, among the Ethiopians, or, according to 
others, among the Parthians ; the infallible books of the Acts and 
the Eevelation of St John are sufficient to put it beyond doubt, 
first, that all the rest of the apostles survived Paul, Peter, and the 
two Jameses ; and, secondly, that John, banished to Patmos, during 
a persecution which began under .Domitian, and terminated in 96, 
returned to the shores of Asia to write his " Eevelation," and end 
his days there. His brother James had, forty years before, opened 
the list of apostolic martyrs, (in 43,) and he himself was to com- 
plete that list of the sufferings of the apostles long afterwards, at 
the beginning of the second century. 1 All ancient traditions agree 
in representing him as having reached an extreme old age. He 
could no longer walk, says Jerome, and was carried to the meet- 
ings of the faithful. 2 He had, it is said, preached among the 
Parthians, and even in India; bat what seems incontestable is, 
that, having settled at Ephesus with the mother of Jesus, and 
there terminated his earthly career at a very advanced age. 
Jerome tells us that his tomb was to be seen there. Both Irenseus 
and Eusebius 3 assure us that he died there under Trajan, in the 
third year of his reign. According to others, he died in 103. If 
Epiphanius is correct, (Hser. 51,) he was then ninety-four. Ac- 
cording to others, he was still more. 

130. When we consider the uninterrupted intercourse of the 
apostles with the churches they planted, their long career is a fact 
of vast importance, as it gives irresistible force to the unanimous 
testimony of Christendom regarding the twenty-two homologou- 
mena. It explains that otherwise inexplicable unanimity. It makes 
it not only easy to conceive, but a matter of course. If it is 
admitted that the apostles and their inspired assistants exercised 
so long and so genial a ministry in the churches for more than 
half a century, it becomes abundantly obvious that all the churches 
would in consequence exhibit the most perfect agreement in their 
views of the twenty-two books already put forth by the apostles 
and evangelists before their decease. On the other hand, follow 

1 He was sentenced several times, but died a natural death. 

2 See Jerome on the Epistle to the Galatians, and De Viris Illust., cap. ix. 

3 Irenseus — Hteres., iii., 3 ; ii., 39. Eusebius — Hist. Eccl., iii., 23 — Chron. Euseb. 
See also Augustin, Serm. 253, chap. iv. 



LONG APOSTOLIC SUPERINTENDENCE. 



Ill 



the inverse line of argument, the striking fact of such unanimity 
throughout the churches, and we perceive, in like manner, that these 
twenty-two books must have been communicated by the apostles, 
and that these men of God had superintended the use of them in 
the Christian community. It is equally clear that, after so long 
an apostolic superintendence, none of the churches could, after the 
death of the apostles, have been induced to receive any additional 
book, which none of the apostles had ever mentioned, and that, 
most especially, a large number of churches could not have re- 
ceived it, and certainly could not have received it without objec- 
tion or opposition, or without a surviving trace that any objection 
to it had ever been made. 

We have already said — but it is well to repeat — that there is 
not in history, there is not in criticism, a supposition so absurd as 
not to be admissible, if we are to regard the possibility of such 
reception as having even the slightest shadow of probability. Let 
us, for a moment, place ourselves in the situation of those primitive 
Christians, and ask how, after half-a-century's ministry of so many 
inspired men, we could have received, after the death of the 
apostles, any additional book which they had not communicated 
during their lives. With what spirit of holy jealousy should we 
have armed ourselves to repel every novelty, to protest against 
every intrusion, to reject every book that had not in its favour the 
clear sanction of these men of God ! 

We shall have occasion to point out afterwards how much force 
this argument receives from the history of the five late epistles. 

131. It is thus manifest that there exists a logical connexion 
between these two unquestioned facts — the long ministry of the 
apostles in the primitive Church, and the perfect uniformity of 
that entire Church regarding the homologoumena, and, in addition, 
a still more necessary connexion between these two facts and the 
authenticity of all these books. 

Were we told at the present day that the author of a modern 
work had for forty years watched over all its successive editions 
all over Europe, and were we informed, moreover, that, at the end 
of these forty years, no bookseller in Europe had the slightest 
doubt of the authenticity of the book in question, would not such 
unanimity be considered sufficient and unquestionable evidence ? 



112 



CAUSES OF UNANIMITY. 



And yet, in how much more complete a form is this twofold 
guarantee — the long superintendence of the author and the unani- 
mity of booksellers — exhibited in favour of the New Testament ? 
Instead of one author, we have eight. We have all the apostles 
jointly and severally guaranteeing the work. We have men of 
God, we have their inspired companions — Mark, Luke, Simeon, 
Timotheus, Apollos, Silas, Barnabas, 1 and so many others — who 
presided over the churches during half a century. Instead of the 
booksellers of Europe, we have all the churches — all the churches 
in the world. And, instead of one book, we have twenty books, 
in reference to which the most complete unanimity of testimony 
is direct, universal, unvaried, and immovable. 

132. There is another characteristic feature of the primitive 
Church that must be kept in view, in order to feel all the force of 
this double guarantee, — long superintendence and complete unani- 
mity. This is the intercourse so uninterrupted, so intimate, so 
varied, that existed between the apostles and the churches, and be- 
tween the churches themselves. This feature appears in all the 
details of their history, and in all existing traditions respecting 
them. Numberless facts bearing on this point have been recorded, 
of which we do not warrant the authenticity. We are told, for 
example, that the apostle John, in the last part of his career, 
settled at Ephesus, as at a common centre of Eastern and Western 
Christendom, where he might stretch out both his arms to the 
churches of the East and of the West. We are told by numerous 
ancient witnesses (Caius, 2 Eusebius, 3 Jerome, 4 Victorinus, 5 Chry- 
sostom, 6 Theodorus of Mopsuestia?) that the bishops of Asia pre- 
sented themselves to him at Ephesus, and requested him to draw 
up for the use of the churches of God a gospel that might complete 
the Gospels already published. Tertullian 8 and Jerome 9 inform 

1 Acts xiii. 1 — T^opJjra/ — 2 Tim. i. 6; 1 Tim. iv. 14. 

2 About 196. In the famous Canon called Muratori's, which many attribute to 
him. 

3 H. E., hi., 24. 4 In Matt. Procem. 5 In Apocal. Bibl. Patr., iii., 418. 

6 Auct. Incert. Montfaucon, viii., 132. 

7 Cabena in Joan. Corderii. Mill. N. T., p. 198. Edit. 1723. 

8 If this fact were admitted, it would not at all affect the inspiration of this 
fourth Gospel. 

9 Tertull. De Baptismo, 15 and 17. Jerome, Catal. Vir. 111., in Luc, 7. 



INTERCOURSE OF EAELY CHURCHES. 



113 



us that a presbyter of Epliesus having put forth a book entitled 
" The Acts of Paul" was by the apostle convicted of imposture, 
though the writer tried to excuse himself by alleging a pious 
intention of doing honour to the memory of Paul. In selecting 
these statements from a collection of so many similar traditions, 
our object is simply to shew what vigilance the apostles exercised 
for half a century. "We seldom appeal to mere traditions, and 
usually refer only to the facts of Scripture as authentic history ; 
but the tradition we here repeat serves of itself to throw light on 
the subject. Indeed, the Epistles and the Acts of the Apostles 
fully shew the unceasing solicitude of these men of God, and 
particularly of Paul, for the welfare of the churches they had 
planted. He himself tells us that he had continually " the care 
of all the churches/' from Jerusalem to Illyricum, from Rome 
to Macedonia and Asia. He was constantly visiting them. He 
traversed for this purpose the whole empire. He suffered ship- 
wreck, in the discharge of his apostolic duty, four times. 1 He was 
often " in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by the 
Jews, in perils by the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the 
wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in 
weariness and painfulness, in cold and nakedness/' He sent to 
the churches his companions in the ministry ; he received from 
them letters and messages ; he required to know their condition; 2 
he wept in his prison at Rome on hearing of the waywardness of 
certain Philippians ; he was refreshed when he received good news 
from the churches ; he was incessantly struggling in prayer for 
each of them, and even for such of their members as he had never 
seen ; he adjured them in the name of the Lord that his epistles 
should be read by all the brethren, and that they should be com- 
municated by one church to another, 3 just as Peter afterwards re- 
commended the reading of the epistles of Paul as well as of the 
rest of the Scriptures ; 4 he constantly inquired into their condition 
with the solicitude of a mother desiring to know the state of the 
child at her breast ; 5 he watched over their religious views with a 

1 2 Cor. xi. 25-27 ; Acts xxvii. 41. 2 1 Thess. iii. 5-8 ; Philip, ii. 19-29. 

3 Philip, iii. 13; 1 Thess. iii. 8; Col. i. 9, ii. 1-5, iv. 12; Rom. xv. 30; Philip, 
i. 3; 1 Thess. i. 2; v. 27; Col. iv. 16. 4 2 Pet. iii. 16. 

6 Gal. iv. 18; Philip, iv. 17, ii. 28, iii. 18; Col. i. 8, 9, 24; 1 Thess. iii. 6-10. 

H 



114 



CAUSES OF UNANIMITY. 



holy jealousy ; he was in the deepest concern when they were 
wandering from the truth ; 1 " who is weak/' he exclaimed, " and 
I am not weak ? who is offended, and I burn not ?" 2 " My little 
children," he says to the Galatians, " of whom I travail in birth 
again until Christ be formed in you." 3 

133. It is easy, then, to perceive that, during such a ministry, 
which, in the case of some of the apostles, was extended to periods 
of fifty, sixty, and almost seventy years, it was impossible that any 
spurious book could be introduced into the Church ; and that the 
churches should unanimously ratify a book that had not been 
acknowledged by these men of God. 

134. It is, in like manner, easy to perceive that, after the death 
of the apostles, at the conclusion of so lengthened a ministry, all 
the churches would inevitably be deeply imbued with a religious 
respect for all apostolic institutions, and a conservative spirit 
carried to the greatest height, and a jealous distrust regarding 
every article of doctrine that had not been sanctioned by the 
apostles during their lives, and, above all, suspicion regarding 
every book which, previously to the death of the apostles, had not 
obtained a place in the sacred canon. Owing to these causes, the 
latest writings of some of the apostles, which, shortly before their 
death, they had addressed to various churches, encountered oppo- 
sition down to the time of the Council of Nice, as we shall have 
occasion to state more in detail, and only mention here by antici- 
pation. We shall, however, at the same time, shew that these five 
short books were received by the great majority of Christians, 
owing to the positive proofs of their authenticity, and received, in 
particular, by those churches whose position best enabled them to 
decide, as it was to them that the books in question were addressed, 
as they were thus most interested in rejecting them if spurious. 
We shall, further, shew that these same facts afford an admirable 
proof of the vigilance of the churches, of the freedom of their 
action, and of the thorough conviction that produced their unani- 
mity regarding the twenty-two homologoumena. 

We have, however, to consider two other historical facts still 
more important, which furnish additional evidence regarding our 
sacred canon ; and which, combined with the great fact of the 

1 Gal. iv. 19, 20. 2 2 Cor. xi. 29. 3 Gal. iv. 19. 



EAPID SPREAD OF THE GOSPEL. 



115 



unanimity of all the churches of the first centuries in reference to 
the homologoumena, demonstrate with a force that is irresistible 
the authenticity of all these books. 

Section II. 

THE IMMENSE NUMBER OF CHURCHES AT THE DEATH OF THE 

APOSTLES. 

135. The triumphant rapidity of the conquests of the Church 
previously to the death of the apostles, and its immense extent 
at the end of the first century, form an amazing fact, but a fact as 
unquestionable as prodigious. 

136. This new religion, which avowedly aimed at the annihila- 
tion of all others, and which, taking its rise among persons of 
humble condition, and in the most despised of all the nations 
of the earth, denounced all error, openly assailed every evil pas- 
sion of the human heart, and spared neither the pride of the great, 
nor the pretensions of the priesthood, nor the prejudices of the 
multitude ; — that religion which, while it declared war against all 
the false deities that had been worshipped with so much splendour 
from the most remote ages, was at first preached only by persons 
of low degree, and yet called upon mankind to recognise their God 
in the person of a Jewish carpenter, who had been rejected by his 
own people, and through them brought to capital punishment^ 
that religion which was opposed by the people, the priests, the 
religious teachers, the magistrates and kings, of every nation ; that 
religion which required every individual to regard himself as a 
criminal in the sight of God, and to give up for its sake his pro- 
perty and his life ; that religion which, though unceasingly perse- 
cuted, had for three centuries shed no blood but its own ; — that 
religion had already in forty years put forth a power that fore- 
boded the conquest of the world. In forty years it had traversed 
the globe ; it had overflowed its surface as the Nile overflows 
Egypt ; it had spread itself everywhere like a river of life. The 
apostles had not yet terminated their career when there appeared 
in every land missionary churches, devoted, and without number. 

Perhaps this remarkable fact does not occupy an adequate place 
in the minds of those who turn their attention to the study of the 



116 



CAUSES OF UNANIMITY. 



canon. It is, however, a fact of vast significance ; and at the 
same time it is abundantly established from both those sources 
of proof — between which the investigators of Christian antiquity 
divide their preferences — the declarations of Scripture, and the 
testimonies of history. 

137. Scripture leaves no doubt on this subject. Paul, after only 
seventeen years of his ministry, states, in addressing the Chris- 
tians at Rome, (xvi. 26,) that the " gospel had been already made 
known to all nations;" that he himself (xv. 19) "strove to 
carry it exclusively to parts where it was previously unknown ; " 
and yet that he had fully preached it in all the regions " from 
Jerusalem to Illyricum." The voice of the messengers of the glad 
tidings had gone forth, like the light of the sun, " through all the 
earth, and their words to the end of the world," (Rom. x. 18.) 
This statement was no poetic hyperbole ; and from his success 
may be inferred what had been achieved by the labours of all the 
other apostles and evangelists. Besides, in thus spreading the 
gospel all over the earth, they had been merely carrying out the 
command and fulfilling the promise of their Master. Jesus, in 
foretelling to them the destruction of Jerusalem, that was to take 
place thirty-six years after His death, had declared to them that, 
previous to that event, the "gospel of the kingdom should be 
preached all over the world as a testimony to all nations." " Go, 
then," He had said to them, "and convert all nations." This 
command was in a short space of time so fully carried into effect, 
that Mark, in writing his Gospel, (xvi. 20,) could already say of the 
apostles, " They went forth and preached everywhere," (i/crfpvfjav 
TravTd'xpv) Paul, in his Epistle to the Colossians, says to them, 
(about the year 60,) " The gospel is come unto you, as it is in 
all the world; and bringeth forth fruit." He adds, in ver. 23, 
" The gospel, which ye have heard, and which has been preached 
to every creature that is under heaven." 

Only four years after these words had been written, the same 
gospel, though violently persecuted by the Emperor Nero, already 
counted, as Tacitus informs us, " an immense multitude " of fol- 
lowers in the city of Rome alone. Paul, six years before he wrote 
to the Colossians, was preparing to proceed to Spain, 1 and there is 

1 Rom. xv. 24. 



VAST NUMBERS OF EAELY CHRISTIANS. 



117 



nothing improbable in the supposition that he actually did proceed 
thither, as Clement of Eome 1 tells us that he went to the utmost 
bounds of the West, (eVl to repfjua rrjs Avaecos.) But even if 
Paul's journey to Spain may be considered uncertain, it is an un- 
questionable fact, that, in the year in which he was preparing to 
go to that country, the Christian Jews in Jerusalem alone amounted 
to at least fifty or sixty thousand, Qiow many myriads, iroaai 
lAvpiahes elalv ireiriaTevKOTwv, said James.) 2 So extensively had 
the gospel been propagated at the same period in Italy, through 
the humble but incessant labours of believers, that, long before 
the appearance of any apostle in that country, 3 very numerous 
conversions had taken place. "The faith of the Romans was 
spoken of throughout all the world" when Paul wrote to them, 
(Rom. i. 8.) When, three years afterwards, he landed in Italy for 
the first time, he already found near Naples, at Puteoli, brethren 
to receive him, as also at the distance of seventeen leagues from 
Rome — at " Appii forum," and, still nearer, at " the Three 
Taverns." Six years afterwards, but before Paul had laid down 
his life for Jesus Christ, the Christian inhabitants of Rome, form- 
ing "an immense multitude" were enduring in masses the most 
fearful tortures inflicted by imperial madness. 

138. It is fortunate, we have already said, that, in proof of 
these incontestable facts, we have, in addition to the testimony of 
Scripture, that of two of the most illustrious personages of Roman 
antiquity — both contemporaries of Paul, 4 both heathens, both 
deeply prejudiced against Christianity, both men of consular 
dignity, 5 both men of letters, both practical statesmen, and both 
testifying what they had seen. I allude to Tacitus and Pliny the 
Younger. 

139. It is well known that Tacitus has written, in the form of 
" Annals/' a history of his own time, from the death of Augustus 
to that of Nero. In book fifteenth, which comes down to the 
eleventh year of the latter emperor's reign, that is, a.d. G-i, when 
Paul was still preaching the gospel, Tacitus mentions the terrible 

1 Chap. v. of his First Epistle to the Corinthians. 2 Acts xxi. 20. 

8 Rom. xv. 20 ; 2 Co. x. lo, 16. 

4 One born in the year 61, and the other in 64. 

4 Tacitus was consul in 97, and Pliny three years later. 



118 



CAUSES OF UNANIMITY. 



conflagration that ravaged the capital of the empire, and which all 
attributed to Nero. " Eleven of the fourteen quarters of Eome had 
been destroyed by it. To remove suspicion from himself, Nero," 
says Tacitus, " sought for persons to be believed the guilty authors 
of the devastation, and subjected to the most cruel tortures unfor- 
tunate beings, abhorred, indeed, for their abominations, and called 
Chrestians by the common people, (qucesitissimis poenis affecit 
quos per flagitia invisos vulgus Ghrestianos appellabat.) Chrestus, 
after whom they were called, having been put to death under 
Tiberius by the procurator Pontius Pilate, a measure which for a 
time checked that execrable superstition. But soon the torrent 
burst forth anew, not only in Judea, where it had originated, but 
even in Rome itself — that centre where all the abominations of 
the universe are ultimately collected (superstitio rursus erum- 
pebat, non modo per Judceam, originem mali, sed per urbem 
ipsam . . . .) Those who avowed themselves to be Christians 
were first taken up, and, afterwards, on their depositions, an 
immense multitude, convicted, less of having been implicated in 
burning Rome than of hating all mankind.'' 

An immense multitude, (multitudo ingens,) — such is the testi- 
mony of Tacitus regarding the number of Christians living in 
Rome even in the time of Paul. 

"The most obstinate scepticism," says the infidel Gibbon on 
this subject, "is compelled to respect the truth of this extra- 
ordinary fact, which is further confirmed by the accurate Suetonius, 
for that historian likewise mentions the punishments inflicted by 
Nero on the Christians," (ch. xvi.) 

140. As to the multitude of Christians in Asia, we have, in 
like manner, a testimony of Pliny, no less authentic and precious. 
An intimate friend of Tacitus, and high in the favour and con- 
fidence of Trajan, Pliny was then proconsular governor of the 
beautiful provinces of Bithynia and Pontus, and had received 
from his master instructions to prosecute the Christians, and 
inflict on them capital punishment, should they persist in the 
faith. When, however, he commenced the iniquitous task, the 
immense number of the victims appalled his conscience. This led 
him to address to the emperor a letter, still extant, (lib. x., epist. 
97,) in order to obtain some mitigation of the rigour of his first 



pliny's testimony. 



119 



instructions. That remarkable letter, written while John was 
still alive, (in the year 103,) well deserves an attentive perusal. 
We shall merely present, in an abridged form, that part which 
mentions the innumerable multitude of the Christians, and their 
steadfastness in the faith, for on the shores of the Black Sea, as on 
the banks of the Tiber, whenever it was necessary to confess 
Jesus Christ, their persecutors beheld them (to use the words at- 
tributed to Julian the Apostate) coming in haste, like bees to the 
hive, to meet martyrdom for the name of Jesus, (tanquam apes 
ad alvearia, sic illi ad martyria.) 

On commencing proceedings against the Christians, he was 
startled at once by the number and the harmlessness of the crowds 
he had to punish. " What is to be done, my lord ? " said he to 
Trajan. "The manner in which I have acted towards those de- 
nounced as Christians has been this : I ask them whether or not 
they are Christians. On their rej:>lying in the affirmative, I repeat 
the question once, and afterwards again, threatening to put them 
to death if they persist. As to those who continue obstinate, I 
order them to be led to punishment, for whatever may be the 
nature of their religion, I have thought that their opposition and 
obstinacy at least deserve to be punished. They declare that their 
only offence consists in meeting together on a certain day before 
sunrise, to sing hymns alternately to Christ as to a God, and to 
bind themselves by an oath not to commit perjury, nor adultery, 
nor theft, nor falsehood. After this they separate to meet again, 
without any disorder, at a repast which they take in common. 
Having ascertained these particulars, I deemed it necessary to 
question by torture two female slaves from among those who are 
said to exercise a certain ministry among them ; but I could dis- 
cover nothing but an extreme and wretched superstition. What 
must I, then, do ? The case appears to me very serious, especially 
on account of the vast number of persons of both sexes, of every 
rank and every age, who are already or will be under persecution, 
(inulti enim omnis cetatis, omnis ordinis, utriusque sexus, etiam 
vocantur inpericulum et vocabuntur.) It is not merely in the cities 
that this superstition has spread, but also in the towns and villages, 
and even in rural districts, (neque enim civitatis tantum, sed vicos 
etiam atque agros super stitionis istius contagio pervagata est") 



120 



THE EAPID SPKEAD OF CHKISTIANITY. 



141. In a word, this great fact which we have pointed out is 
constantly appealed to as an unparalleled event by all the ancient 
apologists, often with eloquence and exultation, as it deserves. 
Read, for example, the noble passages in Tertullian, or in Arnobius, 1 
or in Minutius Felix. 2 " We are so numerous," they say to the 
Romans, " that if we were to secede from your state, we should 
cause its ruin." 

"We are but of yesterday," said Tertullian 3 to the Roman 
government, " and we have filled your empire — all that is yours, — 
towns, islands, fortresses, municipal towns, market-places, the 
senate, the forum. We have only left you the temples, (sola 
vobis relinquimus templa.) We can make war upon you without 
taking arms ; it is enough not to live with you ; for if the Chris- 
tians who compose so great a multitude (tanta vis hominum) 
should abandon you and retire into some other country, it would 
be the ruin of your power, and you would be terrified at your 
own solitude." "The Gothic nations/' he says elsewhere, 4 "the 
various Moorish tribes, all the regions of Spain and Gaul, and 
places in Britain inaccessible to, the Romans, have been subjected 
to Christ, as well as the Sarmatians, Dacians, Germans, Scythians, 
and nations yet unknown/' After this survey, he expresses his 
admiration that in so short a time the empire of Jesus Christ was 
far more extensive than that of Nebuchadnezzar, of Alexander, or 
of the Romans. 

142. This period of the Church, signalised by such a marvel- 
lous increase, reaches to the reign of Hadrian, (117-138.) Chris- 
tianity had then made its way even to barbarous nations, and 
numerous churches had been founded among the Egyptians, Celts, 
and Germans. We may here notice " those many nations of 
barbarians" (jroWa eOvrj rcov fiapfidpmv) to whose judgment 
Irenseus 5 appeals against the Gnosis of the heretics of his 

1 Adv. Gentes, lib. ii., p. 44, 45. Lugd. Batav., 1651. 

2 In his dialogue, entitled, Octavius. 

3 Apologet., ii., cap. 37. 

4 In his book Adversus Judseos, chap. 7. 

6 Hseres., hi., 4, 2. He also says, (i., 2,) " The Church is disseminated through- 
out the whole habitable world, (kci^' oXrjs rrjs. oUov/xep^s,) and even to the ex- 
tremities of the earth/' (eW nepdroiu rrjs yrjs biecrirap^vq.) 



THEEE GEEAT FACTS. 



121 



time, 1 affirming that these nations had been christianised before 
the appearance of the Gnostic sects. But it is well known that 
scholars place the birth of these sects in the age of St John, and 
even before the publication of the fourth Gospel. 2 If we believe 
the most trustworthy statements of the learned Armenian, Moses 
of Chorene, 3 Christianity had penetrated the East very early 
among the people using the Syriac language, the Armenians, and 
the Persians. We must read the thirty- seventh chapter of the 
third book of Eusebius to form a just idea of the prodigious 
extension of the gospel in Trajan's reign, and the admirable 
activity of the churches to effect it. Allowing for some inflation 
of language, this grand historic fact is brought to light, that " the 
immediate disciples of the apostles, building on the foundation 
laid by those men of God, had scattered the seed of the kingdom 
of heaven throughout the whole extent of the habitable globe," 
(ra acorrjpia airepfiara tt)? twv ovpavcov ftacriXelas ava Traaav 
eh 7rXaT0? eiriGireipovTes rr]v oifcovfji,evr)v.) Many of them, he 
says, sacrificed their property to follow the vocation of evangelists, 
to announce Christ to those who knew Him not, and to communi- 
cate to them the scriptures of the divine Gospels, (/cal rrjv Oelwv 
EvayyeXlcov Trapahihbvcu Tpacp^v.) 

143. It will be perceived what additional strength this wonderful 
fact gives to the testimony rendered by the universal Church to 
the homologoumena of our sacred canon. But to apprehend the 
full force of the argument, the three great facts we have been 
dwelling upon must be taken in combination ; for then, it seems 
to us, they will form a powerful threefold cable round these 
twenty-two homologoumena to maintain their apostolic authen- 
ticity, and render them immovable. There is, first, the continuity, 
during the whole of the first century, of the personal ministry of 
the apostles in the churches ; then there is the immense number 
of churches founded in all parts of the world during this long and 

1 The heretics of his time, like those of the present day, called their systems 
science or knoidedfje, Tuwais, Gnosis, and denominated themselves " men of 
Gnosis." 

2 See Bunsen in his Hippolytus, i., 236. 

3 He has left a history of Armenia. Born, it is said, in 370, he kept the 
archives before being made archbishop of Bagrevand. See Neauder's Church His- 
tory, vol. iii., 162. Bohn's ed. 



122 



THE UNANIMITY OF THE CHURCHES. 



vigilant ministry ; and lastly, there is the constant, perfect, uni- 
versal unanimity of these innumerable churches on the question 
of these books during the lifetime and after the decease of the 
apostles, and in the following age. Whoever attentively considers 
these three combined facts will acknowledge that, for splendid 
guarantees, none like them are to be found in the literary history 
of the whole world in any age. 

144. We here quote with pleasure the words of Dr Thiersch. 1 
After employing similar arguments, "I hope," he says, "I have 
succeeded in shewing the opponents of the first canon how far 
their suppositions on the characters of the first half of the second 
century have wandered from the domain of history into that of 
fable. They would have us suppose that, at a time when, cer- 
tainly, the general body of Christians and their bishops did not 
look like a gang of false coiners, men were to be found among 
them so exceedingly clever, (religious men, too,) that, in some 
incomprehensible manner, they were able to impose their fictions 
on all the Christians in the world as on a stupid multitude, blind 
and dumb to insanity, and to make them receive with closed eyes 
their forgeries, under the title of apostolic scriptures, and of 
scriptures transcribed by a believing antiquity ! And when the 
light of history is brought to bear upon it, this is the drift of the 
strange idea that a single one of the homologoumena may have 
been a forgery. And we must avow, that incredulity in reference 
to the first canon, when persisted in, requires the admission of 
such incredible and preposterous things, that, in comparison with 
such gullibility, the blindest belief of some Christians in certain 
miraculous legends is a mere trifle/ 5 

But we have not yet done with the facts ; we have still another 
to bring forward, perhaps more important than all the preceding. 
It will make our proofs superabound. We wish to speak of what 
is termed Anagnosis, or the public reading of the Scriptures, 
(avayvaycTis.) 

1 Versuch zur Wiederherstellung des hist. Standpuncts fur die Kribik dcr 
N. T. Schriften, 1845, ch. 6. 



ANAGNOSIS. 



123 



Section III 

ANAGNOSIS. 

1 45. The regular and constant practice of publicly reading the 
Scriptures in all the churches of the New Testament is a cardinal 
and pregnant fact in the question of the canon. This fact is so 
important, that it justly claims the first place ; for we must per- 
ceive that on this institution actually rests the whole history of 
the sacred volume. Anagnosis is its formative cause and true 
foundation ; this alone explains its truth — this alone its perpetual 
preservation — this alone the admirable unanimity of the churches 
in acknowledo-ino- from the first, and for two centuries, all the 
homologoumena — this alone explains the oecumenical unanimity 
of all the churches, at a later period, in receiving the entire 
canon. 

146. The modern opponents of our sacred books, especially in 
Germany, have so well understood the competency of this great 
fact to establish invincibly the authenticity of the first canon, that 
they have done their utmost to gainsay the reading of the New 
Testament in the primitive churches, and to fabricate an apocry- 
phal and tardy birth of such a practice in the latter half of the 
second century. But these efforts have been in vain. The exist- 
ence of this institution, and its universality from the earliest 
period, can be clearly demonstrated. We shall see that it goes 
back to the apostolic times — that it belongs to the very genesis of 
the universal Church — that, at the beginning of the second 
century, in all the churches then ancient, it had been perfectly 
established, and that in all those founded since, by thousands in 
the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian, (that is to say, from 98 to 138,) 
anagnosis had begun with their very existence, and formed an 
essential part of it. 

147. It was very naturally, and in the logical course of events, 
that this usage took its rise with the Church itself. The apostles 
and their divine Master had already found it established in the 
synagogues of Israel. Anagnosis had been for ages one of the 
universal practices of the ancient worship as regards Moses and 
the prophets. All the synagogues were founded for this purpose. 



124 



THE CHUECH AND THE SYNAGOGUE. 



Orders were given, the Jewish doctors say, to erect a synagogue 
wherever ten Jews could be found ; and wherever a synagogue 
existed, it was furnished with a chest containing the Scriptures, 
and everywhere these Scriptures were publicly read to the faithful 
every Sabbath-clay. And it is well known that, in the days of 
Jesus Christ, the Jews were spread over the whole world, and that 
" Moses/' as St James expressed it, (Acts xv. 21,) "hath of old 
time in every city them that preach him, being read in the syna- 
gogues every Sabbath-day." 

And, on the other hand, it is a historical fact that the primitive 
Church was from the first modelled on the synagogue, 1 All the 
Christian Churches, for many years, consisted entirely of Jews. 
The Church was originally composed only of Israelites brought in 
a short time by myriads to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, either 
at Jerusalem and in Juclea, or in Samaria, or in the cities of the 
Gentiles. On receiving the gospel, all these new Christians pre- 
served the forms and practices of their worship to which they had 
been used in the synagogue. Their ministers were called Chazan 
in the Aramean congregations, or Episcopoi among the Hel- 
lenists. Each of them had three parnasin or deacons. The 
Chazan every Sabbath-day appointed seven Koreim or readers 
(anagnostw) to attend to the reading of the Holy Word. He 
kept himself near the reader, watching if he read correctly, and 
correcting him if he made a mistake. On the other days of the 
week there were readers, but not so many. 2 Thus this sacred 
usage, which had prevailed in all the synagogues as the most 
indispensable part of the service, passed into the Christian 
Churches formed at first in the synagogue, continued after its 
pattern, and composed entirely of Jewish converts. These first 
Christians could not imagine an assembly without these sacred 
readings ; the idea of public worship without anagnosis could not 
have entered their minds. It was thus that this institution, being 
naturally established in all the assemblies of the new people 

1 On the derivation of Christian churches from the synagogue, see Archbishop 
Whately's Essay on the Kingdom of Christ, pp. 78-82, second ed., 1842; or the 
French translation by Burnier, 1843, pp. 66, 67. 

2 See Lightfoot's Harmony, p. 479, and his Horae Hebr. et Talmudicse in 
Evang., &c, vol. xi., p. 88, quoted by Whately in the appendix to his Essay on 
the Kingdom of Christ, p. 256, (or 215 of the French translation.) 



AXAGXOSIS. 



125 



of God, necessarily gave them their form, so that it would have 
been practised as a matter of course, even had there been no 
injunction on the subject in the apostolic writings ; but there was 
one, as we are about to shew. 

148. Anagnosis, then, in the Christian assemblies, preceded 
the appearance of the New Testament, instead of a long time 
having elapsed, as has been asserted, before it was practised. The 
Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament were read as in the syna- 
gogues ; and that regular reading of Moses, the Psalms, and the 
Prophets, was exclusively in use during the fifteen years which 
preceded the appearance of the first apostolic epistles, in the 
innumerable churches formed by the apostles, and particularly in 
those founded by Paul before the year 49 or 54 in Samaria, Syria, 
Arabia, Cyprus, Galatia, Lycaonia, Mysia, Pisidia, Thrace, and 
Macedonia. 

It is, in fact, in 49 that we think (according to Orosius 1) the 
decree of Claudius against the Jews of Rome (Acts xviii. 2) must 
be placed ; and we know it was then that Paul, with Silas and 
Timothy, wrote those two beautiful epistles to the Thessalonians, 
which were, it would seem, the beginning of the written word of 
the New Testament.^ 

149. As we have said, it was necessarily from the time of the 
apostles and the first promulgation of the gospel that the custom 
of reading the Scriptures of the Old Testament passed from the 
assemblies of the synagogue into the assemblies of the Church ; 
for no sooner had the year 70 arrived, no sooner had Jerusalem 
been destroyed, the temple burnt, the Jewish believers dispersed, 
and all the apostles gone to their rest, than the spirit of the 
Christian churches (as all history testifies) became too hostile to 

1 VII. 6. The third year of Claudius. Others place it in the second year. 
Suetonius speaks of the decree in his life of Claudius, but without giving the 
date. 

2 We do not pretend to fix the date of Matthew's Gospel; for it is very 
probable, as Lardner thinks, that none of the four Gospels preceded the Council 
of Jerusalem, (Acts xv.,) if that of Mark must be placed late, (Mark xvi. 20,) and 
that of Luke at a later distance of time from the publication of the Acts, (the 
years 60, 61, 62.) Yet the fact reported by Eusebius (H. E., v. 10) of the Gospel 
of Matthew in the Hebrew language, (Efipatov ypd/x/xacri,) which the apostle 
Bartholomew carried to India, seems to place the first Gospel very near St Paul's 
first epistles, or rather even before them. 



126 



ANAGNOSIS. 



the Hebrew nation and to the Judaising Christians, to allow hence- 
forth of borrowing anything from their institutions. 

150. Moreover, the custom of reading in these assemblies of the 
Church, besides the scriptures of the prophets of the Old Covenant, 
the scriptures of the apostles and prophets of the New, (as far as 
they were published,) was one which must necessarily have ap- 
proved itself to all the churches and to all the faithful, as at once 
most natural and indispensable. Were not the writings of the 
apostles superior in their eyes even to the writings of the Old 
Testament ? Did not these men of God, at the time when they 
wrote, perform works of power much more wonderful than the 
greatest of the ancient prophets had ever accomplished ? Were they 
not, as apostles and prophets, the twelve founders of the Church ? 
(Eph. ii. 20.) And besides, did not their writings (the Gospel of 
John, for example, and the Apocalypse of John) claim to be 
inspired from on high as much as Isaiah or the Pentateuch? 
Why, then, and how, by what right and for what reasons, was it 
possible, while they read every Lord's-day the scriptures of the 
ancient prophets, to leave unread the scriptures of the new, and 
while they listened to those prophets who had divinely announced 
the Son of man, to doom to silence those prophets who had heard 
His own voice, and had divinely proclaimed Him, " God bearing 
them witness with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles 
and gifts of the Holy Ghost?" (Heb. ii. 3, 4.) 

Can we believe that all these Christian societies, after the death 
of their founders, the apostles, could be content to read publicly 
only the Old Testament, and to hear, after that reading, nothing 
but the discourse — the X0705 of which Justin Martyr 1 speaks — 
the unpremeditated discourses of ministers who had neither the 
miraculous spirit with which the departed apostles had been filled, 
nor even the charisms of the apostolic men who followed them. 
This cannot be admitted ; even the bare thought of it must not 
be entertained. 

151. If, as certain opponents of the canon would have it, the 
public recognition of the books of the New Testament by anag- 
nosis did not take place till the latter half of the second century, 
they must solve for us two historical impossibilities. In the first 

1 In his First Apology, chap. 67. 



ANAGNOSIS. 



127 



place, how can it be admitted by any one who has studied the 
character of the second century in the original authorities, that 
such a revolution was effected in the public worship of all the 
churches in the world — a change so important that it would be 
absolutely incompatible with the conservative and traditional 
spirit that history attributes to the Christians of that epoch ? And, 
in the second place, how would it be possible that so great an 
event, which has not its parallel in the annals of that epoch, could 
take place without any commotion, without any report of it having 
come down to us, without any of the fathers having spoken of it, 
without even Eusebius, who relates so much in detail all the 
reminiscences of those primitive times, being apprised of it, and 
without Iren&uis, in whose youth this astounding fact must have 
occurred, saying a word about it ? No one can give an answer to 
these simple questions. It is sufficient for us to enunciate them, 
to shew that they do not allow of one. 

152. Thus for any one who contemplates by the light of these 
facts the primitive Church performing its worship, and reverently 
listening eveiy Sunday to the voice of the readers, nothing is 
more easy to conceive than the successive formation of the first 
canon ; nothing can be more naturally explained than the unan- 
imity of all the churches as to its contents and constant preserva- 
tion. All was accomplished without dispute or noise, by the calm 
and regular course of anagnosis. Only suppose ourselves present 
at this consecrated practice of the first century, and all is explained. 
To settle this great affair, we have no need of councils, or of agi- 
tation, or of efforts, or of decrees. The apostles had not even to 
create the institution by their directions, (though they really have 
given them ;) it existed before their time — " from ancient genera- 
tions " (etc yevicov dp^alcov) ; 1 it maintained itself during their life ; 
it acquired permanence after their death. At the most, they had 
only to sanction it by their approval, and by the part which they 
took in it. And when, after a half-century of anagnosis, they all 
disappeared from the earth, the Christian churches had everywhere 
such a perfect knowledge of their sacred canon by continual 
reading, that simple believers were often to be met with who had 
thus learnt their scriptures by heart, and could correct the anag- 

1 Acts xv. 21. 



128 



ANAGNOSIS. 



nostes (the reader) if he mistook a single word. 1 Historians 
attest this fact. We can thus understand that nothing but this 
practice was needed to create the canon, and to make it known 
in its purity, to sanction it in every place, and to render it irre- 
vocable. 

153. We see, then, that the reading of the Old Testament never 
ceased, either in the synagogue or the church ; it existed in the 
first assemblies at Jerusalem ; it was always an indispensable part 
of their service ; it passed afterwards from the congregations of 
Jewish Christians to those of the Gentiles ; for example, it followed 
the Corinthian believers into the house of Justus, 2 and from the 
synagogue of Ephesus entered the school of Tyrannus, 3 for all 
knew, as St Paul had said, 4 that by the reading of the Holy 
Scriptures, "the man of God is perfected, thoroughly furnished 
unto all good works, and made wise to salvation through faith 
that is in Christ Jesus/' At a later period, as a new epistle or a 
new gospel was given by the apostles to the churches, believers 
were anxious to add to the reading of the Old Testament that of 
these new prophets, whose writings, they knew, proceeded from the 
same Spirit which had been shed upon them in greater abundance 
and plenitude. 

154. Possibly, though we do not affirm it, the anagnosis of 
these new books was not so frequent as long as the churches had 
still in their midst either the apostles possessed of the great signs 
of apostleshipS or men invested with those charisms (or super- 
natural gifts) which the apostles had conferred upon them by 
imposition of hands for the common benefit. Yet it remains evi- 
dent that the churches, when deprived of the personal teaching of 
these men of God, and only having in their possession the writings 
they had left, took good care not to abandon the usage to the 
individual piety of every Christian in his own house, and offered 
them publicly for the edification of all by a solemn and regular 
anagnosis. 

1 Such, for example, as J ohn the Blind in Palestine, St Anthony in Egypt, and 
Servulus at Rome. Eusebius, De Martyr. Palest., xiii., p. 344; Augustin, De 
Doct. Christ., in prologo., torn, iii., p. 3 ; Greg. Mag., Horn, xv., in Evangelia., 
torn, iii., p. 40. 2 Acts xviii. 7. 3 Acts xix. 9, 10. 

4 2 Tim. iii. 15, 16. 5 1 Cor. xii. 2; 2 Cor. xii. 12. 



ANAGNOSIS. 



129 



155. In this manner the successive recognition of all the books 
of our sacred canon prevailed in the churches of God effectively, 
but without any parade ; and, as Dr Hug has remarked, (in his 
Introduction to the Xew Testament,'*-) as the publication of a 
work of profane literature was anciently made by its recital before 
an assembly of the author's friends, 2 so for the books of the New 
Testament, it was their anagnosis in the church to which they 
had been originally sent, that very soon consigned them for the 
use of all the people of God to the oecumenical treasury of their 
sacred books. 

156. Yet though we have shewn, by the simple logic of facts, 
how this anagnosis of the apostolic scriptures would necessarily 
be established in the primitive churches, even had there existed no 
injunction of the apostles on this point, we ought not to forget 
that such an injunction was actually given by them ; and any one 
may be convinced that they composed their epistles and their other 
writings with the intention that they should be read in the assem- 
blies for worship. 

157. As to the apostolic injunction, we must carefully observe 
that it was given by Paul with remarkable solemnity in the very 
epistle which was the first published of the writings of the New 
Testament : " I charge (or adjure) you by the Lord/' he wrote to 
the Thessalonians, 3 " (Op/clfo uyua? rbv Kvpiov) that this epistle be 
read unto all the holy brethren/' He adjures them by the Lord. 
And when, towards the end of his career, he wrote from Eome to 
the Colossians, he gave them the same injunction: " And when 
this epistle is read amongst you, cause that it be read also in the 
church of the Laodiceans (kclL ev rfj Aaohucetdv eKKXi^aia ava- 
yiHDaOfi) ; and that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea" 
(rrjv €k AaoSiKelas).* 

Could the churches on receiving such orders fail to perceive 
that these letters of Christ's apostles ought to make a part of 
their sacred anagnosis ? 

It must also be observed that the greater part of the books of the 

1 Leonard Hug, Einleitung, &c, i., 108. Stuttgard. 
1 We have an instance in Tacitus, De Oratoribus, c. 7. 
* 1 Thess. v. 27. See Propp. 16, 17. 

4 Which is believed to be the Epistle to the Ephesians. See Frop. 427. 

I 



130 



CAUSES OF UNANIMITY. 



New Testament were addressed, not to individuals, but to public 
men, or to particular churches, or to all the Christian churches 

in general. 

158. We are able also to point out in our Scriptures, as Dr 
Thiersch has done, many expressions which allude to the anagnosis 
as a fact already fixed in the habits of the worship of the age. They 
shew us that the apostles, without giving orders that were super- 
fluous on this point, since the usage was universal, speak as if expect- 
ing that their books would be publicly read in Christian assemblies. 
To this usage the words at the beginning of the Apocalypse 1 seem 
to refer : " Blessed is he that readeth" (the word here is singular, 
Dr Thiersch remarks, as if designating the public reader,) "and they 
that hear the words of this prophecy/' (here the verb is plural, as 
designating his hearers.) Why, asks Dr Thiersch, this difference, 
if there is not an allusion to the anagnosis ? To this usage the 
seven-times-repeated call 2 in the same book refers: "He that 
hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches'* 
The book, then, is for the churches. To this usage the words in 
the Gospel of JohnS refer, which very clearly shew that the apostle 
in writing them had before his mind's eye the assemblies of the 
faithful and their sacred readings : " But these are written that ye 
might believe ;" and again in chap, xix., "that ye might believe." 
To this usage the words refer in the Epistle to the Colossians, 4 
addressed to Archippus, and connected immediately by the copula- 
tive with the injunction he had given them to read this epistle in 
the church : " And that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea ; 
and say to Archippus, Take heed to the ministry which thou hast 
received in the Lord, that thou fulfil it." " In this position," Dr 
Thiersch again remarks,^ " these words appear to be addressed to 
Archippus as the person who directed the readings in public wor- 
ship, and they are an exhortation to acquit himself with care in 
this important office." 

159. But what quotation from Scripture is comparable as a re- 
cognition of the anagnosis to that famous passage of Peter (2 Pet. 
iii. 16) where the writer mentions all the epistles of Paul, and 



1 Apoc. i. 3. 2 Apoc. ii. 7, 11, 17, 29, iii. 6, 13, 22. 

3 John xx. 31, and also xix. 35. 4 Col. iv. 17. 

5 Versuch, &c, p. 349. 



ANAGNOSIS. 



131 



complains of their abuse by many " unlearned and unstable " per- 
sons. We see clearly in this passage, (I .) that the author addressed 
himself to the general body of Christian assemblies ; (2.) that already 
in his time Paul had ivritten to these assemblies, and that all the 
epistles then known were read among them ; for the author men- 
tions all, (vrdaas,) without determining how many ; (3.) that Paul 
had written them long enough for them to be known to all by the 
anagnosis ; (-4.) that if many members of these churches misunder- 
stood and wrested them to their own destruction, yet it was always 
a matter received by them, as well as the judgment of the author, 
that all these epistles of Paul ought to hold among them the same 
rank as all the other writings of the Old Testament (d><? zeal ra? 
\oi7ras ypacpas) which had been read for ages in all the assemblies 
of God's people. 

It is scarcely possible to imagine more positive testimony, taking 
this epistle simply as a document of the first century, and without 
regard to its author ; for we shall elsewhere prove its priority to 
the Epistle of Jude ;1 and Thiersch, quoting it as we have done, 
and for the same object, takes care to add, " And let no one object 
that he rejects the canonicity of this epistle. What does it signify, 
since we can compel the most incredulous criticism not to place 
this writing later than the appearance of the Gnostic sect, that 
is, in the second part of the apostolic age ? " 

Thus, then, this epistle, even for those who refuse to ascribe it 
to the apostle Peter, its professed author, is an irrefragable me- 
morial of the anagnosis in the first age of the Church. 

160. Moreover, if we study the first Christians, in their habits 
and languages, we shall recognise a people among whom the 
public use of the Scriptures had long prevailed. For example, the 
frequent mention of the anagnostae, 2 or readers, who held a higher 
rank than the deacons. 3 For example, the use in the East among 
all the Christian congregations, even the poorest, to keep in their 
places of worship a collection of the sacred books. 4 For example, 
also, the mention of persons (even the blind) entirely uneducated, 

1 Book IV., Chap. III., V. 

2 Cyprian, Epistles 24, 33, 34, 29, 38, (others 33.) Bingham's Antiquities, ii., 27. 

3 " Hodie Diaconus qui eras Lector." — TertulL, De Prtesaipt., 41. 

4 Scholz, Prolegomena to his Critical Edition of the New Testament. 



132 



CAUSES OF UNANIMITY. 



who, like John the Martyr, of Palestine, had learnt the Scriptures 
by heart, by the simple means of constantly attending the offices 
of public worship. 1 For example, equally, the fact that these 
simple members corrected the anagnostes if he happened to say 
one word for another. 2 For example, again, those translators who 
were retained in their assemblies for those of the hearers who did 
not understand the language of the anagnostes : as in Syria for 
those who did not know Greek, or for those who did not know 
Aramaic ; and as in Africa, for those who only spoke the Punic 
language, or the Latin. 3 And for example, lastly, the usage, kept 
up till the time of Tertullian, 4 in the churches founded by the 
apostles, of guarding with veneration the autographs of the 
epistles they had received from these men of God. This appears 
to be the meaning of the language of this father, when he says, 
" Go through the apostolic churches, where the very chairs of the 
apostles are still preserved in the same places, and where their 
authentic epistles are recited." 5 

161. But the testimony of Justin Martyr, thirty-six years only 
after the death of St John, will, perhaps, better satisfy some 
minds as to the high antiquity of the anagnosis of the New Tes- 
tament. This distinguished man belonged to Palestine by his 
birth, to Egypt by his studies, to Asia Minor by his travels, and 
to the church of Italy by his long residence in Rome, as the head 
of a school of Christianity. He was converted from the Pagan 
philosophy to the Christian faith in 133 ; it is in his famous 
Apology, presented to Antoninus Pius, (in the year 139,) that he 

1 Eusebius, De Martyr. Palest., cap. xiii. 

2 Bingham, vii., 3, 17, xiii., 4, 10. — We may cite as a continuation of habits thus 
formed, and as a specimen of the scrupulous attention which would not allow the 
slightest change in the sacred text, the zeal with which Spiridion opposed Triphilus 
when, in a discourse delivered before several bishops, he substituted for a phrase 
in the Gospel one that he believed more elegant. — Sozomen, Hist., xi., 1. We 
may also cite with St Augustine (Epist. 71 and 85) the excitement occasioned 
in the African Church by the change of a single word, which yet was of no im- 
portance as to faith or practice. The faithful demanded a reason from their 
bishop, and obliged him to repair the scandal by a serious apology. We see from 
all these incidents how familiar the text of Scripture was to Christians of the 
first ages. 3 Bingham, xiii., 4, 5, iii., 13, 4. 

4 De Prsescrip. Hseretic., cap. xxx., p. 212. 

6 " Percurre ecclesias apostolicas apud quas ipsse adhuc cathedrae apostolorum 
suis locis president," (or praesidentur.) 



ANAGNOSIS. 133 

speaks of the anagnosis. 1 His defence of primitive Christianity 
is the most ancient that has been handed down to us ; and what 
renders it particularly valuable on the question now before us is 
not only its high antiquity, together with his eminently public, 
and, so to speak, official character ; it is the fact that monuments 
of this epoch, whether of profane or ecclesiastical history, are of 
extraordinary rarity. The epoch of the death of the last apostles, 
like that of the reigns of Nerva and Trajan, 2 is historically very 
obscure, 3 although immediately preceded, and soon followed by 
times abundantly illustrated, whether by the annals of the Church, 
or those of the empire. As to documents, which can make us 
acquainted with the practices of the first Christians in their public 
worship, we are reduced to the greatest destitution. Starting 
from the year 53, when Paul describes what took place in the 
Corinthian Church, 4 down to the year 217, when Tertullian lays 
before us the forms of worship in his age, we can find in the 
archives of human knowledge but two other descriptions of the 
Christian assemblies of these remote days. And yet the first is 
only that of a Pagan, the proconsul Pliny ; 5 whilst the other is 
that of Justin Martyr, thirty-two years after Pliny. 

The following is the testimony of Justin ; and we may observe 
that, if he describes the public worship of the Christians of his 
age, it is not for the purpose of transmitting the knowledge of it 
to future generations ; it is only to demonstrate their innocence to 
their persecutors, and particularly to the Emperor Antoninus :— 

"On the day called Sunday," he says, "there is a gathering 6 to 
the same place of all who live either in the towns or country, and 
then the memoirs of the apostles, or the writings of the prophets 7 

1 In chap, lxvii. This is the largest and the first, though generally printed after 
the other, which was composed twenty-four years later, and presented to the 
Roman senate under the reign of Marcus Aurelius. 

3 From the year 96 to the year 117. 

3 The great number of eminent historians of this epoch, so brilliant in the 
annals of Rome, has not prevented this strange obscurity ; the greater part have 
perished, and the glorious reign of Trajan is scarcely to be studied except in the 
letters of Pliny, in medals, and in the abridgment which is left us of Dion. 

4 1 Cor. xi., xiv. f Book I., Chap. IV. See Prop, 140. 

6 Ivv'sXtuffig ymrai. 

7 Ka) ru u'7rofj,vT} l <AOvsvi/.uru ru/v anofSTOKw ij ra ffuyypcifM/xara toj* 



134 



CAUSES OF UNANIMITY. 



are read as long as the time allows. Then, when the reader has 
finished, the president, by an address, makes an exhortation and 
an appeal to prompt to an imitation of these noble examples/' 1 

Nothing can be more decisive than this short description, to 
shew us the rank and high place which the reading of the apostles 
and prophets already held in their religious meetings, only thirty- 
six years after the death of St John. 

We may here also recognise at a glance the perfect resemblance 
of this primitive worship to that of the synagogue ; for, in reading 
Justin Martyr, we might suppose we were present with Paul and 
Barnabas at that assembly in Pisidia, so well described by St Luke 
seventy-five years before : " They went into the synagogue on the 
Sabbath day, and sat down. And after the reading of the law 
and the 'prophets," (or, as Justin says, "the anagnostes having 
finished,") " the rulers of the synagogue" (the irpoeo-T&Te? of Justin) 
" sent unto them, saying, Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word 
of exhortation for the people, say on," (el eari X0705 ev vfiiv 
irapaKkr)aeco^^) (It is the hia \6<yov of Justin.) 

162. Many efforts have been made of late in Germany to evade 
the irresistible force of this testimony of Justin. Some have 
endeavoured to see in these Memoirs of the Apostles only apocry- 
phal Gospels ; but Hug, Winer, Biedermann, Otto, and others, 
have treated this curious evasion as it deserves. Others would 
recognise in it only the four Gospels, to the exclusion of the other 
books of the New Testament ; but Credner 2 and Thiersch 3 have 
had no difficulty in shewing, by apt quotations from Irenseus, 
(lib. ii., cap. 27,) and the Apostolic Constitutions, (lib. ii, cap. 59,) 
that by such expressions Justin evidently intended the scriptures 
of the Old and the New Testament. 

163. We, therefore, once more infer that this great fact of the 
regular and public reading of the New Testament is an institution 
as old as the Church itself; that it explains the perfect unanimity 
(which without it is inexplicable) of all the churches on the sub- 
ject of the twenty-two homologoumena ; that, joined to this 

1 A/a Xoyov rqv vov&efffav xa) irpoxkvim r^g ruv xaXwv rovrwv /uiju,q<rsa<; 

3 Beitrage zur Einleitung in die biblischen Schriften, i., p. 60. (1832.) — Credner 
speaks only of Irenaeus. 3 In the work quoted above, vi., 350. 



ANAGN0S1S. 



135 



unanimity, it will be an irrefragable proof of the authenticity of 
these holy books ; and that it renders impossible the intrusion of 
an illegitimate book into the sacred canon after the death of the 
apostles, — impossible that such an intrusion could succeed in being 
admitted into all the churches on the face of the earth, — im- 
possible, above all, that it could take place without exciting 
innumerable protests, — impossible, lastly, that if these protests had 
been made, the report of them should not have come down to us. 

But we pass on to the monuments of the canon — that is to 
say, the traces it has left in the literature of the first ages. 



CHAPTEE IV. 



the various monuments of the canon. 

Section Fiest. 
four classes of monuments. 

164. Whatever may be the force of the arguments presented in 
the foregoing chapters, we are asked for new proofs taken from 
the authors of the primitive Church, and sometimes we hear com- 
plaints of the alleged insufficiency of the testimonials which its 
literature renders to the first canon. We proceed, then, to bring 
forward these testimonials. 

The monuments which the canon has left us of its oecumenical 
"use and its authority are of four or five classes. 

First of all, the versions which, at an early period, were made 
of the New Testament into different languages, particularly the 
Latin and Syriac. But we think that enough has been said already 
on this subject in our First Book.l 

In the second place, the writings, not very numerous, but quite 
sufficient, of the second century. We arrange the Christian 
authors, whose writings have come down to us, in two divisions : 
first those of the second half of the century, and then those of the 
first. 

In the third place, the numerous and involuntary testimonies 
which the ancient enemies of the truth bear to the New Testa- 
ment : that is to say, on the one hand the unbelievers of the 
second century who attacked Christianity ; and on the other, the 
heretics who during the same period harassed the Church. 



1 See Propositions 31, 32, 33, and 34. 



THE FIELD OF EESEAECH. 



137 



Fourthly and lastly, the apostolic fathers, and even the later 
writings of the New Testament. 

But to proceed in this review with the greater clearness, and to 
avoid superfluous quotations, we must first assign limits to the 
field of our researches. 

Section Second. 

the field of eeseaech. 

165. This field must not extend beyond the first and second 
century. In fact, it would be useless to go further; since the 
Bationalists who are the most determined against the authority of 
our sacred books acknowledge that, from the days of Origen, or the 
beginning of the third century, everything had been settled in the 
Church on this great question. Even the too celebrated Strauss 1 
grants that "in the times of this father our sacred books were 
universally acknowledged as proceeding from the apostles, or the 
companions of the apostles. " What our opponents still dispute is, 
the anterior testimony, the voice of the second century, and that of 
the first. So that, to establish our proofs by the literature of the 
Church, we have only to pass it under review through successive 
years in reverse order, taking our point of departure from the 
last days of Septimius Severus, about the year 203, and back- 
wards till we reach the end of St John's ministry, in 103, or 
rather about the end of Paul's ministry and the reign of Nero, in 
68. Between these two termini, over the only interval where our 
opponents profess not to be satisfied, we shall proceed to cast a 
bridge firmly suspended on a triple chain of testimonies. We 
set out from the year 203, when the great Origen, after witnessing 
the martyrdom of his father, began, at the age of eighteen, his 
career of teaching in Alexandria, and we stop about the year 103, 
when John, full of days, finished his life at Ephesus ; or, perhaps 
better, towards the year 68, when Peter and Paul ended their 
course at Rome, very soon after having written, as we think, the 
one his second epistle, and the other, his Epistle to the Hebrews. 
In other words, we follow the traces of our holy books from the 
last days of Septimius Severus to the last days of Nero. Our 

1 Life of Jesus, part i., p. 74. 



138 



MONUMENTS OF THE CANON. 



opponents allege that they have been lost between the opposite 
banks ; it is our business to exhibit them — a task which has often 
been performed by others under different forms. For, after all, the 
history of the Church, notwithstanding the paucity of its litera- 
ture at this epoch can supply us with abundant materials for 
placing between these two heights the three strong chains of 
which we spoke just now, with which to construct a safe passage 
from one side to the other. 

166. In order to give their true meaning and just value to 
these historical monuments, we must not forget that the labour of 
studying them ought constantly to be pursued, while at the same 
time carefully taking cognisance of the contemporary Church in 
its interior life, its totality, and its character. Dr Thiersch, among 
the German writers, has clearly shewn the importance of this rule, 
and the aberrations of the men who have neglected it. 

1 67. To render more palpable to the minds of our readers the 
persons and dates of this important epoch, we think it will be of 
use to present in a synoptic Table the series of the only witnesses 
that can be produced in this investigation. For this purpose, we 
set down in the order of time, opposite the series of emperors, 
(i.) that of the fathers who have left authentic writings in the first, 
and second centuries ; (ii.) that of the heretics who, while dis- 
puting the truths of Holy Writ, have yet borne testimony by their 
very attacks to the sacred canon ; (iii.) that of the enemies of 
Christianity, who in the same period have assailed it while acknow- 
ledging it was founded on our sacred books ; (iv.) that of the great 
persecutions which the Church underwent ; and lastly, (v.) that of 
apologists who publicly defended it. 1 

168. We hope that this chronological table of emperors, fathers, 
adversaries, and heretics, will shed a useful light upon the discus- 
sion that will follow it, by reducing its elements to the most 
precise terms, and by shewing their small number and their cor- 
respondency. We have omitted in the column of the emperors 
those whose reign did not last above a year; in the column of 
heresies those who have left no traces, as the Ophites, 2 or those 

1 This is for greater distinctness, for perhaps we might more logically leave 
them in the series of the fathers. 

2 Four sects which Hippolytus assigns to the days of St J ohn. 



THE FIELD OF RESEARCH. 



139 



who, though sound as to the doctrine of God and Christ, were not 
so in point of discipline, 1 (as the Montanists 2 and Quatuordeci- 
manians ; 3 ) and lastly, in the column of the fathers, on the one 
hand, those whose works are lost or who have left but a few short 
fragments preserved in Eusebius, or elsewhere — as Papias* 
Hegesippus, 5 Pantaenus, 6 Melito^ Dionysius of Corinth,^ 
Asterius Urbanas? — and on the other hand, those whose pre- 
tended writings are decidedly rejected by the most esteemed 
critics. !0 

1 See in Bunsen's Hippolytu3, i., 231, the thirty -two sects which that father 
reckoned in his tim'e. 

2 Or Cataphrygians, about the year 161. 

3 In the dispute about Easter, in the second and third century. 

4 Bishop of Hierapolis in 118. He had been a hearer (dKovarrjs) of St John. 
Irenseus tells us he was a friend (eraipos) of Polycarp. He adds, that he wrote 
five books. Eusebius, H. E., iii., 39. 

5 The most ancient ecclesiastical historian. He lived from the year 100 to 170, 
having travelled much to see all the apostolic men, and to prepare his history, of 
which Eusebius and Photius have preserved some fragments. 

6 Head of the Alexandrian school about 179. 

7 Bishop of Sardis about the year 170. 

8 Bishop of Corinth about the same time. 

9 Bishop of Galatia about the year 186. 

10 See Hefele, (Patr. Apostol. Opera,) Pro! eg., p. 9, 80. 



140 



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MONUMENTS OF THE CANON. 



147 



169. To render the review of all these monuments of antiquity 
more clear and striking, we begin with the latest ; and thus going 
back in the order of time, we first of all listen to the least ancient 
fathers before we reach those of the first half of the second cen- 
tury; from these again, we proceed to the fathers of the first 
century, then to the apostolic fathers, and lastly, to those apostles 
who wrote the last books of the New Testament. 



CHAPTER V. 



the testimony of the fatheks of the second half of the 
second century. 

Section First. 

the united testimonies of iren^eus, clement, and 
tertullian. 

170. If we place ourselves at the entrance of the third century, 
in the year 202, when the terrible persecution of Septimius Seve- 
rus was raging throughout the whole extent of the empire, and 
young Origen, who had just seen his father Leonides beheaded, 
was beginning at Alexandria his long and splendid career, we shall 
find, on the theatre of the world, three brilliant lights occupying 
high positions, and for a long period illuminating the Church. 
These were Irenseus, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian. 
While Origen had already devoted himself to those immense biblical 
researches which, with all his errors, will ever endear his name to 
the Churches of God, these three great men commanded the atten- 
tion of all Christians for a long series of years, and their writings 
were circulated through every part of the Roman Empire. Like 
three lighthouses, erected at great distances from each other, their 
beams were seen from afar : Irenseus, beyond the Alps, in the dis- 
tant metropolis of Gaul, where they spoke Greek, Latin, and Celtic ; 
Clement in Alexandria, that seat of learning where Coptic and Greek 
were spoken ; and, lastly, Tertullian at Carthage, the metropolis of 
proconsular Africa, where they spoke Latin and the Punic language. 
Eor a length of time the voices of these three men were heard. 
Irenseus, an octagenarian and more, for a quarter of a century, 



TESTIMONY OF THE FATHEES. 



149 



fed the flock of Christ at Lyons, and was destined to end his long 
career by martyrdom in the year 202.1 Clement, aged fifty-two, did 
not die before 217 ; and the great Tertullian, the most ancient of 
the Latin fathers, then in his forty-second year, but converted 
seventeen years before, and presbyter of Carthage for ten years, 
exerted in Africa, as throughout the Latin Church, a long and 
beneficial influence. We know the respect afterwards paid to his 
memory, in this very Carthage, by the bishop and martyr Cyprian. 
" What Origen was for the Greeks, that is to say, the first of all," 
said the famous Vincentius of Lerins, 2 (two hundred years after 
Cyprian,) " Tertullian has been for the Latins, that is to say, incon- 
testably the first among us," (iiostrorum omnium facile princeps.) 
" Who has been more learned than this man, and who has had 
greater experience both in Divine and human things ? " 

171. It would be impossible to imagine for the second half of 
the second century three men more competent to bear witness to 
the prevailing belief respecting the Scriptures. Everything recom- 
mends them to our confidence on this point : their character, their 
erudition, their labours, their travels, the esteem in which they 
were universally held, and all the sacrifices they had made for these 
holy writings. Besides, if we select them as the representatives of 
the second half of the second century, their testimony (especially 
that of Irenseus) goes back, by the circumstances of their life, 
much higher than the time when they began their ministry. It 
reaches almost to the times of the apostles. Every one is ac- 
quainted with that famous epistle of Irenaeus to Florinus, 3 in which 
he tells of having passed his early youth in intimacy with Poly- 
carp, who himself had been, he says, a hearer of St John, and who 
had repeated to him his pious recollections, " wholly conformable 
to the Holy Scriptures," he is careful to add. Moreover, what gives 
the greatest weight to the testimony of these three men is, that 
their writings still remaining are very extensive. Those of Irenaeus 
(Grabe's edition) make a folio volume of about five hundred pages ; 
the best edition of Tertullian (that of Venice, 1746) is also a large 
folio ; and the best of Clement of Alexandria (in Greek, with a 

1 This martyrdom is, however, not perfectly certain. 

2 Edit, of Baluze. 1663. P. 323. 

3 Hist. Eccles., i., 5, cap. 19, 20. Iren., Adv. Hocres., iii., 3. 



150 



TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS. 



Latin translation) makes two folio volumes. Moreover, these three 
witnesses, particularly Clement and Tertullian, were converted from 
the pagan doctrine to the profession of the gospel simply through 
recognising the power of the testimonies rendered to our sacred 
books, and finding in all the contemporaneous churches a common, 
constant, and undisputed conviction respecting them. They had 
before their eyes decisive reasons for abjuring their ancient errors, 
and for believing in the Divine origin of the Scriptures. All 
three, trained from their youth to critical investigations, had all 
the means of ascertaining the certainty of those books which be- 
came henceforward the rule of their life. All three had travelled 
in Asia, Greece, and Italy ; they were acquainted with men of every 
land who represented the knowledge of their times. They were, 
besides, very near the original sources, being almost contemporaries 
of the immediate successors of the apostles ; so that, when they 
owned the authority of the Scriptures, which had been already 
received as Divine in all the churches, they possessed, in order to 
receive this faith everywhere persecuted, all the means, as well as 
all the motives, for ascertaining the legitimate supremacy which 
those books had acquired in all Christian societies. 

172. Do we wish, then, to hear the voice of the second century, 
and to know its opinion, as expressed at the time, of the sacred 
Scriptures ? Let us open one of the important writings of these 
three great teachers, and say if it be possible to imagine testimony 
more abundant, either of their personal conviction, or of the uni- 
versal belief which prevailed in their times, in all the Churches of 
the East and of the West. We shall experience, it must be con- 
fessed, some embarrassment in giving an account of this testimony, 
from its very abundance. It seems to us that the attempt to 
demonstrate it by quotations is to ignore and weaken it, and all 
we can say of it will always be far below the impression that 
would be made by the simple reading of these works. Let a 
person occupy himself with them only for a single day, and the 
impression he will receive will be far deeper than any words of 
ours can make. He will find himself borne along, so to speak, on 
the full current of the Scriptures — he will be transported into the 
midst of a generation which lived in the light of the New Testa- 
ment — he will hear the men of that generation appealing to our 



CHAEACTEEISTIC3 OF TEE1E TESTIMONY. 



151 



sacred books in order to establish a truth, just as for any object 
of sight we should make use of the light of the sun. All their 
pages shew them to us, constantly depending on the oracles of 
God as the only foundation of their faith and the faith of every 
one ; they are only ministers of this word ; they quote it as their 
rule, because it is the universal standard, and for any one to 
oppose it is, they say, " to avow himself a heretic — it is to forsake 
the Church," — for the whole Church follows its rule as one man. 
This word is for them the supreme law by which every heresy, 
past, present, and future, is to be judged, as it will judge hereafter 
the living and the dead. We do not think it possible to cite an 
author among the moderns who has appealed in his writings more 
frequently, and with a more absolute deference, to the infallible 
authority of this holy word. Not only the bulky volumes of 
these three men are throughout penetrated with it — not only are 
they a tapestry in which the passages of Scripture constantly 
recur like a thread of gold along the warp to strengthen and 
adorn the texture ; but you at once perceive that such language 
could not be employed except in a generation that had long been 
submissive to the written word, and accustomed to bow, as one 
man, to its authority. 1 

But before we give a specimen of their testimony by some 
quotation, we believe it will be convenient to exhibit six or seven 
general traits which distinguish it. 

Section Second, 
seven chaeacteeistics of theie testimony. 

173. In the first place, these fathers do not confine themselves 
to making citations continually from the twenty books which com- 
pose our first canon. They speak very frequently of the assemblage 
of these books as forming a whole — a book — a New Testament — 
which the Church of their times had fully received — which it had 
joined to the sacred oracles of the old covenant, and called indiffer- 

1 The most striking passages of the fathers on each of the hooks of the canon 
may be found in great number in the valuable collection of Kirchhofer in his 
work, entitled, Quellensammlurg zur Geschichte des Neutestamentlichen Canons 
bis auf Hieronymus. Zurich, 1842. See especially pp. 17-29. 



152 



TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS. 



ently the Scripture, or the Scriptures, the new deed, the New 
Testament, the Dominical Scriptures, (ra? Kvpicuca*; <ypa(j>d<i, 
Dominicas Scripturas,) the Divine Scriptures, (t<x? Oeias 
ypatyds,) the Gospel, and the Apostle. For these fathers alike 
regard all the epistles as forming in their turn a single book 
which they call the Apostle, and the four Gospels as forming a 
single Tetramorphous Gospel, (or Gospel under four forms,) to 
which they joined the Acts of the Apostles. 

(2.) Another trait of their testimony is, that they habitually 
associate the Old Testament and the New as one series of sacred 
books, having the same origin, and equal authority. 

(3.) A third is, that they declare their inviolable faith in the 
Divine and complete inspiration of all these scriptures ; they put 
them on a level with the other prophets ; they distinguish them 
from every other book which is not inspired, and from every pre- 
tended tradition which is not conformed to them ; they call them 
" the oracles of God," " the foundation and pillar of faith/' " the 
rule of truth," "the theopneustic Scriptures," (to,? Oeoirvevarov^ 
<ypa<pd$,) " the perfect Scriptures," " the Scriptures uttered by the 
Word of God and by His Spirit and they declare of the sacred 
writers, that they were all pneumatophori, (bearers of the Holy 
Spirit,) and that they all spoke by one and the same Spirit of God. 

(4.) Further, they professed this perfect faith in the Divine 
inspiration of all these books while associating themselves with 
the whole Church ; they represent it as the common faith held by 
all the Christians in the world ; they declare that for any one to 
set himself against this oecumenical rule of Truth, is in the opinion 
of all to belong no more to the Christian Church — it is to go out 
of it, (exeuntes;) because not the least discordancy of sentiment 
exists on this point in any contemporary church. 

(5.) Such, in this respect, is their calm and confident persuasion 
— such is the peaceable universality of this conviction among the 
Christians of their time — that you never find them occupied in 
defending it. And why should they ? It was everywhere firmly 
settled ; it was in all the consciences of those who profess the truth ; 
it was not disputed by any party in the Church in the second 
century, and you cannot hear against any of the twenty books of 
the canon one of those objections which biblical criticism multi- 



CHARACTERISTICS OF THEIR TESTIMONY. 



153 



plies in our day. They hold them for a universal and undisputed 
code. When they bring forward a passage to establish any dis- 
puted truth, it is just like bringing a light into a dark place to 
shew an unknown object distinctly. You may differ about the 
object, but not about the light, which is the same for all. The 
Scriptures are the light. This common confidence is taken for 
granted in the second century ; they never demonstrate it. If I 
were speaking of the Ehone in Geneva, should I stay to prove that 
it passes through that city, and that we find water there ? Why, 
then, should these three teachers demonstrate to the men of their 
day that the river of the Scripture flowed through the city of God, 
and that they found there the living waters of grace in abundance ? 
They never did it. In all their folios, they discuss the biblical 
meaning of this or that expression, but never its Divine authority; 
they profess themselves interpreters of the New Testament, but 
never its defenders. What object could they have in defending 
it ? No one in the Church attacked it, and if you wish to meet 
with despisers of the Word, you must go forth and search for 
them in the Eoman schools of Cerdo, Marcion, or Valentinus. 1 

(6.) A sixth trait is, that, in religion, everything is decided for 
them, and everything must be decided for the whole Church as 
soon as it clearly understood what the Scripture has said. " The 
Scriptures," they say, "are a perfect revelation of the Christian 
faith "their teaching is fully sufficient," (scripturarum tractatio 
plenissima,) "admitting neither retrenchment nor addition." "I 
adore," was their language, "the plenitude of the Scriptures." 
" A person," they add, " teaches nothing, if he cannot say of what 
he teaches, It is written." Let not any one allege tradition ; for 
them there was nothing that could stand against the declarations 
of the written word. 

(7.) Lastly, listen to them. " It is to the Scriptures all must 
always appeal in order to explain the Scriptures, {air avrcov irept 
avTO)v,) if we wish to arrive at the truth in a convincing manner, 

(a7T0$€lfCTLfCC0S.) " 2 

1 These three leaders of three heretical sects, bearing respectively their names, 
taught in Rome during the second half of the second century. 

2 These different expressions will be met with later, and we shall point out the 
place. 



154 



TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS. 



Let us now hear nearer at hand these three great teachers of 
the second century, by quoting briefly from them in succession. 
It would be much easier to multiply these quotations than to 
select them, for they offer themselves in abundance in all their 
writings, and we might find even stronger ; but we have first of 
all taken those which would best exemplify the six or seven traits 
we have just specified. We shall begin with the youngest, and 
then go back to his seniors — Tertullian, a presbyter of Carthage. 

Section Third, 
tertullian. 

174. Although the youngest of these three teachers, Tertullian 
is the most ancient of the Latin fathers whose writings have come 
down to us. Born in paganism, only about fifty years after the 
death of St John, this eminent man, whose father was a centurion 
in the army of Africa, was educated according to the pagan philo- 
sophy, and in the study of jurisprudence. At the age of thirty- 
five, he was converted, by being an eye-witness of the punishment 
and Christian constancy of some martyrs. From that time he 
consecrated his genius and his talents to the gospel of Christ with 
all the disinterestedness of a determined heart. The unfair man- 
ner in which he believed himself treated by the clergy of Rome 
obliged him, about the year 207, to protest, by several writings, 
against the corruptions of the Church, and he soon fell into Mon- 
tanism — a rigid sect, which seems to have erred especially in its 
excessive views of discipline, and in wishing to put the revelation 
of their prophets on a level with those of Scripture. Tertullian 
died about the year 220. His principal works are, his five books 
against Marcion, written, as he tells us himself, in the fifteenth 
year of Severn s, in 207 ; 1 his admirable Apologeticus, about the 
year 217; his books against the Jews and Heretics; his treatises 
on Public Shows, on the Soul, on Monogamy, on the Crown of the 
Soldier, on the Pallium, on the Resurrection of the Mesh, &c. 

175. Tertullian made constant use of the Scriptures; he dis- 

1 These dates are taken from a very able dissertation on Tertullian, from which 
an extract will be found at the head of his Apologeticus. (Giry's translation. 
Ainster., 1712.) The imaginary dates of Pamelius and Baronius are there refuted. 



TERTULLIAN. 



155 



tinctly quotes each of the twenty books of the first canon, 1 without 
forgetting even the very short Epistle to Philemon ; 2 and we have 
already mentioned in reference to the innumerable testimonies that 
Tertullian bears to the canon, the words of the learned Lardner, 3 
"that the quotations made by this father alone from the little 
volume of the New Testament are more extensive and more 
abundant than those from the works of Cicero by all the writers 
of all kinds and in all ages." 

" How happy is that Church I " Tertullian exclaims, in his book 
De Praescriptionibus HaereticorumA " It knows one God, Creator 
of all things, and Christ Jesus, Son of God the Creator, born of 
the Virgin Mary, and the resurrection of the flesh ; it mixes the 
law and the prophets with the evangelic and apostolic writings, 
and from these it drinks in its faith." {Legem et Prophetas cum 
Evangelicis et Apostolicis miscet; et inde potat fidem) In his 
treatise De Monogamiap speaking of second marriages, and 
quoting a passage from the New Testament, (1 Cor. vii. 39,) he 
makes use of a Latin version, " which/' he says, " we may plainly 
know is not so in the authentic Greek." (Sciamus plane non sic 
esse in Graeco authentico.) 

The phrase New Testament for the collection of our sacred 
books was already received in his time ; but the two collections 
had previously been called " the one and the other instrument" 
and Tertullian bears witness to the ancient usage, not only of 
having a collection of our scriptures, but of joining this new 
collection to the old. 

In his fourth book, Adversus Marcionem, (chap, i.,) com- 
plaining of the heresy of this man, who attempted to establish an 
opposition between the God of the law and the God of the gospel, 
he calls the law and the gospel, " the one and the other instru- 
*ment," (cdterum alterius instrument^ vel quod magis usui est, 

1 We speak here only of the first canon; about which we would say with 
Kirchhofer, (p. 263, Quellensammlung, Zurich, 1S42,) that he cites equally all the 
canonical books of the New Testament, excepting (as this author says) only three 
allusions, more or less disputable, are found to the Epistle of James. 

2 Adv. Marcion., lib. v., cap. 42. 3 Prop. 122. 

4 Cap. xxxvi. Opera, ed. Leopold, Lips., 1S41. Pars, iii., p. 25. 
6 Cap. xi., p. 532 of the edition of Bale, 1515, cd. Leopold, Lips., 1841. Tars, 
ii., p. 128. 



156 



TESTIMONY OF THE FATHEES. 



Testamenti, 1 ) or, as it is now more usually expressed, he says, 
"the one and the other Testament!' And in his book, Be 
Praescriptionibus, he exclaims, 2 " If Marcion has separated the 
New Testament from the Old, (Novum Testamentum a Vetere,) 
he is later than that which he has separated, for he could separate 
only what had been united." 

176. According to Tertullian, a dogma ought not to be preached 
if we cannot say of it, " It is written!' Woe, according to him, 
to those who add anything to, or retrench anything from, what is 
written. " To wish to believe without the Scriptures, (of the New 
Testament,) is to wish to believe against them." 

In his treatise Adversus Hermogenem? in speaking of a 
certain doctrine, he says, "Nothing is known about it, because 
the Scripture does not exhibit it." {Nihil de eo constat quia 
Scriptura non exhibet!) In the same manner, in his book De 
Game Ghristi^ " They prove nothing, because it is not written!' 
(Non probant quia nec scriptum est, nec, etc.) 

In his treatise Adversus Praccean 5 — "You ought to prove 
what you say," he says, "as plainly from the Scriptures as we 
prove that God made His own Word His Son." " Let us refer," 
he says, in his treatise De Anima, " these questions to the Scrip- 
tures of God" — ("revocando quaestiones ad Dei literas")® 

In refuting an error of Hermogenes,? he says, " Let the heretics 
have to prove their doctrines by the Scriptures alone, and they will 
not be able to stand." (De Scripturis solis quaestiones suas sistant 
et stare non poterunt!) 

In the same book, first speaking of all the Scriptures, and then 
contrasting the New Testament, a gospel, with the entire collec- 
tion, he exclaims, " I adore the plenitude of Scripture, . , . . but 
in the Gospel I find more ; I find the Word as the minister and 

1 He employs this term, the New Testament, many times elsewhere, to desig- 
nate the canon. Thus Ad. Praxean, cap. xv., p. 508, ed. Rigalt. Paris, 1634. 
Pars, iv., p. 266, ed. Leopold, Lips., 1841. 

2 Cap. xxx., p. 212, ed. Paris, 1629. Pars, iii., p. 21, ed. Leopold, Lips., 1841. 

3 Cap. i., p, 33, ed. Paris, 1664. 

4 Cap. vi., p. 312, Pars, iv., p. 6, ed. Leopold, Lips., 1841. 

5 Cap. xi., p. 505, Pars, iv., p. 259, ed. Leopold, Lips., 1841. 

6 Cap. ii., p. 265, Pars, iv., p. 171, ed. Leopold. 

7 Adv. Hermog., cap. xxii., p. 241. 



CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. 



157 



mediator of the Maker." ( <c In evangelio vero amplius et minis- 
trum et arbitrum Factoris invenio sermonem") And as to this 
subject, (he goes on to say,) let the workshop of Hermogenes shew 
that " it is written ;" but " if it is not written, let him fear the 
' woe ' appointed for those who add to or take from the Scriptures." 1 
(Si non est scriptum timeat " Vce Mud " adjicientibus aut detra- 
hentibus destinatum.) 2 And again, in his book Be Praescrip- 
tionibus, indignant at the temerity of the heretics whom he was 
refuting, and holdino* for an axiom that " all faith ought to be 
founded on the Scriptures," he exclaims, " Well ! let them believe 
without the Scriptures, since they will believe contrary to the 
Scriptures ! " (Sed credant sine Scripturis, ut credant adversus 
Scripturas.) 

And now, if from proconsular Africa we pass on to Egypt, we 
shall hear Clement of Alexandria delivering a perfectly similar 
testimony with equal copiousness. 

Section Fourth. 

clement of alexandria. 

177. This father, though older than Tertullian, died three 
years before him, about the year 207. He himself, he says in the 
first book of his Stromata, " approached very near the days of the 
apostles." Born in paganism, and versed in all the science of the 
Greeks, he had for a long time professed their philosophy, when 
he was converted in Egypt by Pantsenus, the pious and celebrated 
head of the Christian school at Alexandria. And when Pantsenus 
left that city, about the year 189, to preach the gospel for several 
years in India, Clement took his master's place in that institution, 
and greatly increased its reputation by his philosophic knowledge, 
and the charm of his instructions. Many ancient authors assert 
that he was born at Athens, and in that city formed his eloquence 
and acquired his erudition. However that may be, it has from 
ancient times been the practice to surname him " of Alexandria" 
to distinguish him from the celebrated Clement of Rome, whom 
all the Church had honoured a century before him. In 202, the 

1 An allusion to llev. xxii. 18, 19. 

3 Cap. xxii. and cap. viii., Pars, iv., p. 19, cd. Leopold. 



158 



TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS. 



persecution of Septimius Severus having forced him to leave 
Egypt, he repaired to Jerusalem, and thence to Antioch ; but some 
years after, towards the end of the reign of Caracalla, returned to 
Alexandria to resume his office of teacher, in which he continued 
to his death. He had an active mind, a prodigious memory, and 
great zeal for the advancement of the Christian faith. Unfortu- 
nately for the Church and himself, but to the great admiration of 
his age, he employed his genius in seeking to form an alliance 
between the religion of Jesus Christ and the philosophy he always 
professed. He aimed at making his Platonism serve as an intro- 
duction to Christianity ; and thus this man, though of unques- 
tionable piety, powerfully contributed to lower the faith and 
spiritual life in the Eastern Church. Such an undertaking can at 
no time and in no place be made without affecting the doctrine of 
original sin, which underlies all the teachings of Jesus Christ, but is 
a doctrine which has ever been rejected by human wisdom. We do 
not, therefore, quote Clement as an interpreter of sacred truth, but 
as a very faithful representative of the belief of his age on the 
canon of Scripture. In fact, he received the suffrages of all the 
ecclesiastical authors who came after him. " His writings/' says 
Eusebius, 1 "are full of the most varied and useful erudition," 
(ifkeiaTTj? 'XpiqaTo^aQdm efiifKeoi.) " Full of erudition and elo- 
quence/' says Jerome, 2 "both as regards the Scriptures and all 
the documents of secular literature/' (tarn de Scripturis quam de 
secularis literaturae instrumento.) "What is there in these 
writings which is not learned ? rather, which is not drawn from 
the depths of philosophy?" (Quid in illis indoctum ? Imo quid 
non e media philosophia est?) 

His principal writings which have come down to us are, his 
Exhortation to the Gentiles, (^0705 irpoTp€7rTitc6$ ;) his Paeda- 
gogue, in three books ; his treatise Quis Dives Salvetur, addressed 
to rich Christians; above all, his Stromata, in eight books, a 
discursive collection of his thoughts, whether Christian or philoso- 
phic. He professes, in some measure, to introduce his readers to 
what he calls a more profound Gnosis or knowledge ; and this 

1 He speaks in particular of the Stromata, H. E., vi. 13. 

2 Script. Eccl., cap. 48, and Ep. ad Magnum, cap. 2. 



CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. 



159 



work, as he informs us himself, 1 must have appeared in 1 92, " 222 
years," he says, u after the battle of Actium." It is believed, also, 
that we have a work of his, (at least an abstract by Cassiodorus,) 
Adumbrationes^ or sketches on the catholic epistles. Lastly, we 
have lost his Hypotyposes, or, at least, only veiy short fragments 
have been recovered ; it was a concise exposition of the contents 
of the Old and New Testaments. 3 

178. But the use of the Scriptures of the New Testament, 
quotations from their text, appeals to their infallibility as a 
sovereign judge of controversies, and the only source of all Divine 
truth, even of the mystic traditions which Clement admitted, 
and the frequent expression of his confidence in their universal 
inspiration, — all this is found in abundance in his writings. And 
not only is it his personal faith in the Scriptures collectively which 
he expresses in almost every page, not only his faith in each of the 
books, (for he continually quotes them,) it is the faith of the 
Church. In Kirchhofer's useful work 4 we may read a copious 
collection of these quotations. "Clement," this writer says in 
speaking of the Stromata — " Clement, almost in every page, cites 
passages taken from the New Testament, from all the Gospels, the 
Acts of the Apostles, each of Paul's Epistles, the First and Second 
Epistle of John, that of Jude, that to the Hebrews, and the 
Apocalypse. There is no part of the first canon of which some 
passage is not found quoted by him except the short Epistle to 
Philemon. But this is purely accidental, owing to the brevity of 
that epistle, which contains only twenty -five verses, and has 
nothing doctrinal. But it appears, according to Eusebius, that it 
was quoted in his book of the Hypotyposes, now lost ; and, as we 
have seen, it was mentioned at the same period in Africa by Ter- 
tullian ; 5 and at the same period, also, it was so fully recognised 
by the Christian world, that at Rome the audacious Marcion him- 
self reckoned it as the ninth of Paul's epistles. " It is only 
the brevity of this epistle," wrote Tertullian, " which has allowed 

1 Stromata, i., pp. 339, 340. 2 For this reason the title is in Latin. 

3 The best edition of his works is by Potter, Oxford, 1715. 2 vols, folio. [A 
cheap and useful edition by Klotz, Lips., 1831. 4 vols. 8vo. — Tu.] 

4 Quellensammlung, &c., p. 22. 

6 Adv. Marc, v. 42. See also Epiph., H ceres., xlii. 9. 



160 



TESTIMONY OF THE FATHEES. 



it to escape from the falsifying hands of Marcion." (Sola huio 
epistolae brevitas sua profuit sit falsarias manus Marcionis eva- 
deret.) And Jerome, 1 in eulogising it, tells us, that if it had 
not been believed to be the apostle Paul's, " it would not have been 
received by all the churches throughout the world," (in toto orbe a 
cunctis ecclesiis fuisse susceptam.) 

"In his book of Hypotyposes," 2 says Eusebius, "Clement has 
given compendious accounts of all the canonical Scriptures, (irdarj^ 
t^? ivhuaOerov <ypa(prj^ lirirerjx^ixeva^ ireirol^rat hi^rjcrei^ with- 
out having even excepted the Antilegomena" (jjurjSe tcW avrtXe- 
yofjLevas irapekOcov.) 

Instead of quoting here the principal passages in which each of 
our sacred books are mentioned by Clement, we think it will be 
more useful only to shew by some citations in what terms this 
father constantly spoke of the Scriptures of the New Testament. 

179. In the third book of his Stromala? Clement expressly 
distinguishes the four canonical Gospels from the apocryphal 
Gospel of the Egyptians. Speaking of a strange sentence, which 
the heretic Cassianus attributed to our Lord, he says, — " In the 
first place, we do not find this saying in the four Gospels that 
have been transmitted to us, (eV rot? irapahehofxevois rjfuv Terrap- 
ctlv evayyeXlois, dX)C ev rat kclt AiyvTrrlov^,) but in that according 
to the Egyptians." 

He always places both Testaments in the same rank as the 
Word of God, Thus, in the second book of the Stromata* he 
says, — " The just shall live by faith — by that faith which is accord- 
ing to the Testament and the commandments, (t?}9 Kara rrjv Sia- 
Qy]kt]v teal Ta? ivToXds,) since these two as to name and time 
being given economically, according to age and progress, are one 
as to their power, (hvvd^iei fila ovaai,) the Old and the New are 
supplied by one God through the Son," (f) [xev irakcua, rj Se Kaivrj, 
But vlov Trap evbs Oeov ^oprjyovvraL.) He also calls the collective 
canon, the Gospel of the Apostle, the Dominical Scriptures, the 
New Testament. 

1 Comment, in Ep. ad Philem., prooem, (Opp., torn, iv., p. 442.) 

2 Hist. Eccl., vi. 14. 

3 Strom., iii., cap. 13, § 93, p. 465, ed. Paris, 1629. Vol. ii., p. 266, ed. Klotz, 
Lips., 1831. 4 II., cap. 6, § 29. Vol. ii., p. 141, ed. Klotz. 



CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. 



161 



In the seventh book of the Stromata 1 he compares them to the 
Virgin Mary giving birth to the Lord, and yet remaining a virgin. 
" Such," he says, " are the Dominical Scriptures, {at KvptaKal 
ypacf)al) giving birth to the Truth, and remaining virgins while 
concealing the mysteries of the Truth." 

" We have for the beginning of the teaching," 2 he says a little 
further, "the Lord, leading us from the beginning to the end of 
knowledge by means of the prophets, and by the gospel, and by 
the blessed apostles." 

" Both the gospel and the apostle," he says again, 3 « command 
us to mortify the old man." 

He always appeals to the Scriptures against his opponents as 
an inspired book, a universal rule, the sole rule of faith, the in- 
fallible judge of controversies. 

In the seventh book of his Stromata* he says, " Those who do 
not follow God when He leads, fall from their elevation ; and He 
leads according to the divinely-inspired Scriptures," (yyelrat Se 
Kara Ta? OeoirvevcrTov^ ypcxpds.) 

And further on, " When we have refuted them by shewing that 
they are evidently in opposition to the Scriptures, (cra^&k hav- 
TiovfAevovs rats ypacpaU,) you always see their leaders do one or 
other of these two things, (Svolv Odrepov) either despise the con- 
sequences of their own doctrines, or prophecy itself, or rather 
their own hope, (77 yap tt)? atcoXovOias rcov afarepcov ho<yfidrwv, 
t) 7% nPO<PHTEI AX avrrjs, fiaXkov Se tt}? eavrcov iXirlSos 
Karafypovovaiv)" To the Scriptures, also, Clement always appeals 
to explain the Scriptures. In the same paragraph he says, " When 
on the subject of the Scriptures, we give a perfect demonstration 
laken from the Scriptures themselves, (o#to>? ovv, /cat rj/ieh air' 
avrwv Trepi avrcov <ypacf)a)v Te/Ve/&>? diroS€LKvvvT€<;,) we then from 
our faith persuade demonstratively, (ix Trlo-reco? 7ret06/x€0a diro- 
Sei/criKO)?.)" 5 

" For those who, with the design of doing good to others," he 
says again, " devote themselves to write or to preach the word, if 

1 Vol. vii., 16, § 94. Vol. iii., p. 280, ed. Klotz ; p. 756, ed. Paris, 1629 ; p. 890, 
ed. Potter. 2 Vol. vii., 16, § 95. 3 P. 706, ed. Paris. 

4 Vol. vii., 16, § 101. Vol. iii., p. 286, ed. Klotz; p. 894, ed. Potter. 
• Strom, vii., 16, § 96. Vol. iii., p. 282, ed. Klotz. 

L 



162 



TESTIMONY OF THE FATHEES. 



it is useful to acquire some other species of instruction, the reading 
of the Dominical Scriptures is necessary for the demonstration of 
the things said, (fjre aXkn iraiheia %pr)cnfio<; rjTe tcjp <ypa<f)cbv rcov 
/cvpia/ccov avd<yvcD(Tt<; et? airohel^LV rcov Xeyo/jievcov avajKaoa.) " 1 

"The truth," he says, 2 "is found by confirming each of the 
things that are demonstrated according to the Scriptures, by ad- 
ducing other similar scriptures, (eV tc3 fieftaiovv efcacrrov rcov 
aTroSeLfcvv/jbevcov Kara ras <y panels, ef clvtwv irakiv twv ofioioov 
rypacfrcov.)" 

Clement, in his philosophy, or Christian Gnosis, as he calls it, 
admitted the existence of a certain mystical tradition, which had 
been given by Christ to four of His apostles, solely on the con- 
cealed sense of Scripture, and which had since been transmitted 
only to certain rabbins of the Church, to be passed from them, 
from age to age, to a certain number of initiated persons, whom 
he calls Gnostics, or Men of Gnosis. And yet, in spite of this 
system of tradition, maintained by him alone, and combated at 
the same time by Irenseus, as well as Tertullian, 3 Clement did not 
cease to declare that the Scriptures are the universal rule of faith, 
for the gnostic initiated into their most profound sense, equally 
with the simple believer, ( f O <yvoc>GTLKo<; 'yap, he says, olhev Kara 
tt]v ypcujitfv.) 4 

" Those," he says again in the seventh book of the Stromata 5 — > 
" those are believers who have only tasted the Scriptures, (Oo fiev 
a7royev(rd/jLevot /jlovov twv ypacfrwv tthjtoI,) but those are the 
Gnostics who have advanced much further, and who become the 
exact gnomons of the truth. They discover the hidden senses, 
which are not perceived by the vulgar." 

But we pass on to the pious Irenseus, who approaches much 
nearer even than Clement and Tertullian to the apostolic times. 

1 Strom., vi, 2, p. 786. 

2 Strom., vii.,' 16, § 96, p. 891. Vol. iii., p. 282, ed. Klotz. 

3 Irenseus, Adv. Hceres, i., 242, p. 101 ; iii., 14 and 15, pp. 235, 237. Tertullian, 
De Prsescript., cap. 8, 25. He calls it madness to suppose that the apostles had 
not revealed the same things to all, but taught certain things in secret to a few, 
(quaedam secrete et paucis demandasse.) 

4 Strom., vii., 11. 

B Vol. vii., 16, § 95. Vol. iii., 281, ed. Klotz, Lips., 1832; p. 891, ed. Potter, 
Oxford, 1715; p. 757, ed. Heinsius, Paris, 1623. 



IEEN^EUS. 



163 



Section Fifth. 

mmmjs. 

180. Irenseus, born among the Greeks of Asia abont the year 
120 — that is to say, only seventeen years after the death of St 
John, and in the same parts where the apostle ended his days — 
had received in early life the culture of a Greek education, and at 
the same time the instructions of Christian discipline ; for he had 
the happiness, he tells us, when he was yet a child, (irais cov en,) 
of being in frequent intercourse with the pious bishop of Smyrna, 
the martyr Polycarp. " This Polycarp/' he says, 1 " instructed by 
the apostles, and familiar with many persons who had seen our 
Lord — this Polycarp who was placed by the apostles over the 
province of Asia as bishop of Smyrna — we have seen in our early 
years teaching all the things which he had learned from the 
apostles, (iv ttj irpodrr) r^xoiv f)XiKia?)" And again, in the interest- 
ing fragment preserved by Eusebius, 2 he thus writes at a later 
period : — 

" Plorinus ! these impious dogmas (of the Gnostics) are not 
what those taught you who were disciples of the apostles ; for 
I have seen you, when I was yet a child, in Lower Asia, with 
Polycarp, when you shone at the imperial court, and sought to 
be distinguished there. I remember better what passed then than 
more recent events, for the things heard in childhood take root in 
the mind. I could tell the place where the blessed Polycarp sat ; 
his appearance and his gait ; his mode of life and his looks ; and 
the discourses he made to the people ; and his familiar intercourse 
with John, and with those who had seen the Lord ; and how he 
repeated their discourses, and all which they had told him about 
the Lord, His miracles and His doctrine. But these things which 
Polycarp narrated were all in harmony with the Scriptures, 
(iravTd crvfMpcDva rah ypa<pai<;.) By the goodness" of God, I 
heard them very attentively, committing them not to paper, but 
to my heart ; and by the grace of God, I still recall them exactly 
to my mind.'"' 

We do not hesitate to give these minute details, because they shew 
1 Hscies, iii., 3. 2 Hist. EecL, v., 19, 20. 



164 



TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS* 



at a glance how the abundant testimony to the Scriptures which 
comes before us reaches almost to the first origin of Christianity. 
Irenseus even tells us that he lived at a time when men might be 
met with who were enriched with charisms, (or miraculous powers 
received from the apostles by the laying on of hands.) 1 " We have 
ourselves/' he says, " heard in the church many brethren who had 
prophetic charisms, (rrpofyrjTLKa ^apicr/mara eyovToav^) and who 
spoke divers languages by the Holy Spirit/' 2 

We see in his works 3 that at the same time he had studied the 
literature and philosophy of his age. Tertullian also calls him " a 
zealous investigator of all kinds of knowledge." 4 He learned 
thoroughly the Celtic language, to render himself useful in 
preaching the gospel, and spoke it habitually. Thus, at the 
beginning of his book, 5 he apologises for not having the habit of 
writing, nor the elegances of language, (\bya>v reyyrjv^) <s because/' 
said he, " living among the Gauls, I am obliged to converse most 
frequently in a barbarous tongue," (irepl fiapfiapov hiakeicTov) 

Irenaeus was an eminent man, admired by all the Church for 
his missionary zeal, not less than for his wisdom and his charity. 
He preached, first of all, the gospel to pagans, and it is said that, 
by the advice of Polycarp, he set out from Smyrna with Pothinus 
to preach the word among the Gauls, and soon after took under 
his charge, at the peril of his life, the church recently formed at 
Lyons in the midst of idolaters. In 178, when Pothinus, who was 
his senior by several years, (having been born fifteen years before 
St John's death,) had suffered martyrdom with so many other 
believers at Lyons, Irenseus succeeded him in his episcopal office, 
and, at a later period, like him, was imprisoned; he was be- 
headed, it is said, under Septimius Severus, according to some, in 
1 97, after the bloody victory which this emperor had gained at 
the gates of Lyons ; according to others, in 202, when his general 
persecution raged against the Christians. Irenseus, in 177, during 

1 Acts viii. 17, iv. 19. 

2 Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., v., 7. See also Irenseus, Hseres, v., 6. 

3 See his citations of poets and ancient philosophers, particularly in the nine- 
teenth chapter of his second book. 

4 Or all doctrines. " Omnium doctrinarum curiossissimus explorator." — Contra 
Valentianos, cap. v. 

5 Page 3. Grabe, Oxon, 1702. 



IREX^EUS. 



165 



the imprisonment of Pothinus, had been sent on a deputation by 
the Gallic churches to the bishops of Asia and the bishop of 
Ronie, Eleutherus. He had afterwards to reprimand the successor 
of the latter for his intolerance. " When a man can do good to 
his neighbour, and refuses to do it," he wrote to him, " we must 
hold him to be a stranger to the love of the Lord." 1 

" His whole ministry/' says Theodoret, " was a blessing to the 
churches of Gaul, as well as to the general cause of truth. He 
was the illuminator ((pcocrrrjp) of the western Galatians, (the Gauls.) 
He composed commentaries, and many other works ; but all, or 
nearly all, have perished excepting his great work Against 
Heresies, written specially on account of the Valentinian Gnostics, 
who, in his time, haviDg found their way from Eome to Gaul, had 
perverted the faith of a great number of persons, particularly 
among females. Only short fragments of the original Greek 
have been recovered ; but the entire work has been preserved to 
us in a Latin version, which is fourteen hundred years old. 2 

181. If we take up the folio of Irenseus, and open it at hazard, 
passing over the first pages, which are devoted to an exposition of 
Valentinian Gnosticism and its impious fancies, (its thirty iEons, 
the mother Achamoth, or the thirtieth iEon, and her progeny,) — 
passing these over, we may assert that it would be difficult to find 
a page in which one or other of our scriptures is not clearly 
quoted. ^Ye know not any modern author who has made more 
frequent use of them ; and the reader, at the sight of such a book, 
will soon be constrained to acknowledge that the Christian people 
of the second century, as regards their knowledge and study of the 
Scriptures, were far superior to the Christian people of the nine- 
teenth. 

1 Fragments of his epistle to Victor, in the works of Irenjeus, p. 466 of Grabe's 
edition, 1702. VoL ii., p. 457, Harvey's ed., Cambridge, 1857, (xxviiL of the 
Syriac Fragments.) 

2 We generally cite Grabe's edition, Oxford, 1702. Others prefer the Benedic- 
tine, which appeared ten years later. [The latest and best is that issued from the 
Cambridge University press, and edited by the Rev. W. Wigan Harvey, 1857, 
2 vols. 8vo. It contains the fragments of the Syriac and Armenian versions, and 
additions to the Greek text from Hippolytus ; with a preliminary dissertation on 
the Gnostic system, and an account of the life and writings of Irenseus, by the 
editor.— Tr.] 



166 



TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS. 



From the first page, we may learn what the whole book will be 
in this respect. The very first line of the preface has a quotation 
from the First Epistle of Paul to Timothy, (i. 4.) " Considering," 
he says, " that certain persons, sent out from among us to attack 
the truth, have introduced, as the apostle says, (/cadcas 6 airocrToko^ 
<f>r)(7Lv^ lying words and endless genealogies, which minister ques- 
tions rather than godly edifying, which is in faith, leading astray 
the minds of the simple, falsifying the oracles of the Lord, (pqBt- 
ovpyovvT€$ ra \6yia Kvplov,) and overthrowing many Qcal itoWov^ 
dvaTpeirovcTLv,) (2 Tim. ii. 18,) after having, under a vain pretext 
of science, (gnosis,) wandered far from Him who created and 
arranged the universe, as if they had to shew them anything bet- 
ter or greater than He. I have thought it necessary, dearly 
beloved, after having read the commentaries of Valentine's dis- 
ciples, (as they call themselves,) to make thee acquainted with these 
monstrous mysteries, that thou mayest make them manifest to 
those who are around thee, and exhort them to keep themselves 
from this abyss of folly and blasphemy against Christ." 

And if from these first lines you pass to the later ones, you will 
have some perception of the abundance, I may say profusion, with 
which this bishop of the second century cites our sacred books. 
Open, at the end of the volume, the beautiful thirty-sixth chapter, 
in which he explains the scenes of the last day. This chapter con- 
tains only fifty-four lines, and yet he has found room for quoting 
at length, besides two passages of the Old Testament, (Exod. xxxv. 
40, and Isa. lxvi. 32,) twelve passages of the New Testament, in 
the following order : — Eev. xii. 5, 6 ; 1 Cor. vii. 31 ; Luke xx. 35 ; 
Matt. xxii. 2, and following ; 1 Cor. xv. 25, 26 ; and again, 1 Cor. 
xv. 27, 28 ; Matt. xxv. 29 ; Eom. viii. 21 ; 1 Cor. ii. 9 ; 1 Pet. 
i. 12. To give some idea, I shall quote the last thirty lines : 1 — 

" Then, as the ministers of the Word teach us, those who have 
been made worthy % to dwell in heaven will be transported thither ; 
some to taste the delights of paradise, others to share in the glory 
of the celestial city. In both abodes they will see God ; but they 

1 We translate them from the obscure and ancient Latin version, for here the 
Greek original only offers a few disjointed fragments. 

2 Or counted worthy, (KaragicoOepres.) The same expression is found in Luke 
xx. 35, xxi. 36. 



IREN^EUS. 



167 



frill see Him in proportion to what they have been ; for in that 
blessed dwelling-place, heaven, there will be that distance placed 
by God himself between those who have borne fruit, some a hun- 
dred, some sixty, and others thirty/old, (Matt. xiii. 8, and Mark 
iv. 8 ;) and this is the reason why our Saviour said, that in His 
Fathers house there are many mansions, (John xiv. 2.) All 
these joys will, in fact, come to them from God, who will assign to 
each his proper abode. For this reason, His Word 1 has said that 
the Father distributes to each one as He is worthy, or will be 
worthy. This is the triclinium, the table at which the guests will 
Bit down who have a part in the marriage supper, (Matt, xxii 2, 
and following verses ;) for the ministers of the Word, the disciples 
of the apostles, tell us that this is the law of co-ordination, (ad- 
ordinationem,) according to which all who are saved will be 
arranged. Thus they advance by degrees, rising by the Spirit to 
the Son, and by the Son to the Father ; the Son at last giving up 
His work to the Father, according- to what the apostle has 
said, (1 Cor. xv. 25, 26,) 'He must reign till he hath put all 
enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed 
is death; ' for in the time of this kingdom, the righteous man upon 
earth will know no more 2 what it is to die. 'But,' adds the 
apostle, ' when he saith, All things are put under him, it is 
manifest that he is excepted which did put all things under Him. 
And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son 
also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, 
that God may be all in all' For this reason, John has carefully 
predicted a first resurrection of the just, (Rev. xx. 5,) and the in- 
heritance of a kingdom on earth, (Rev. v. 10.) For this reason 
also, the apostles have prophesied it in the harmony of their reve- 
lations, (concordantes ;) and this is what our Lord himself 
teaches when He promises to His disciples ' the new wine of the 
cup which he will drink with them in the kingdom of his Father,' 
(Matt. xxv. 29.) Also, the apostle declares that the time will 
come when the ' creature itself shall be delivered from the bond- 
age of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of God,' 
(Rom. viii. 21.) In and by all these revelations, one same God 
and Father is shewn to us who formed man, (qui plasmavit homi^ 

1 " Verbum ejus." 2 " Obliviscetur." 



TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS. 



nem,) who promised to the fathers the inheritance of the earth, 
who dispenses it to them in the resurrection of the just, and who 
thus, fulfilling the promises which He has made to them respect- 
ing the kingdom of His Son, accomplishes at last 'those things 
which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into 
the heart of man' (1 Cor. ii. 9.) Thus, then, there is one only 
Son who has perfectly accomplished the will of the Father, and 
one human race in whom are consummated the mysteries of God, 
— mysteries which angels 'desired to look into' (1 Pet. i. 12,) 
although it is impossible for them to fathom the wisdom of God 
by which this creature is consummated, who is His workmanship, 
{plasma ejus,) to be rendered conformable to His Son, and of the 
same body with Him, (concorporatum filio ;) so that His first- 
born, the Word, descends into the creature formed by His hands, 
that it may be received by Him ; and, in its turn, the creature re- 
ceives the Word, mounts up to Him, rises above angels, and is 
made in the image and resemblance of God." 1 

Such, then, was Irenseus, and such was the canon in the age of 
Irenseus. All our scriptures abound in his book — the four Gos- 
pels, the Acts, the Epistles, the Apocalypse. 

182. And, first, as to the four Gospels. Irenseus quotes them 
continually ; and this fact shews us how deeply, in days so near 
the apostles, their use, and the use of the four exclusively, had 
struck root in the mind of the Church. It is not only that 
Irenseus has written a long chapter, entitled, 2 " Proofs that there 
can be neither more nor fewer than Four Evangelists/' — it is 
not only that, looking at them always as a whole necessarily united, 
he has called them, on this account, " The Gospel with Four Faces;" 
he tries to find out mystic reasons for this quadruple form, which, 
though we may attach little value to them, attest only the more 
strongly the persuasion of Irenseus, and that of his age. As 
Olshausen 3 has remarked, — " If Irenseus thus spoke of the four 
Gospels to the men of his age, it must have been because the 
existing Church never knew a time in which it did not possess 
them/' Irenseus compares the quadriform Gospel (rerpdfiop- 

1 Lib. v., c. xxxvi. Tom. ii., pp. 428, 429, ed. Harvey, 1857. 

2 Lib. iii., c. xi., § 7. Tom. ii., p. 33. In the Benedictine edition this is the 
ninth chapter. 3 ^Echtheit, d. 4 Ev., § 272. 



IEEX,£US. 



169 



(f)ov) to the four regions of the earth, to the four universal spirits, 
to the cherubim with four faces, &c. " The Church," he says, " is 
disseminated over the whole earth, but the column and support of 
the Church (crrvXos /ecu arripL^pLct) is the gospel and the Spirit of 
life. It was, then, befitting that it should have four columns 
spreading abroad incorruptibility, and vivifying humanity. And 
hence it is manifest that the Word, the Creator of all things, who 
is seated on the cherubim, and sustains all things, when He pro- 
posed to make Himself known to men, wished to give us the gos- 
pel under a quadruple form, which nevertheless is maintained in 
unity by one and the same Spirit, (eScoxev r)\uv rerpd/jLopcjiov to 
evcvyyeXiov, evl 8e irvevpuaTL avveyo^evov^ 1 " But," he adds, " we 
have shewn, by very many and very powerful reasons, (per tot et 
tanta ostendimns,) on the one hand, why there are not a greater 
number than four ; and, on the other, why there are not fewer, 
because these are the only true and firm ones, (quonidm sola ilia 
vera et fir ma.)" 

"Things being so," 2 he adds, "very vain and very ignorant, 
but much more audacious, (/xdraioL iravres /cal dfiaOel^, irpoaeru 
Be icai TokfjLwpoi) are all those who wish to alter this figure 
(IBeav) of the gospel, and to give it more than four faces, or to 
give it fewer, And so great, in reference to the Gospels, is this 
firmness of which we speak, (tanta est autem circa Evangelia hcec 
firmitas,) that heretics themselves 3 bear testimony to it ; and you 
see each one of them, when he comes forth, (egrediens unus quis- 
que eorum,) endeavour to support himself by these same Gospels, to 
confirm his own doctrine, (ex ipsis conetur confirmare doctrinam.)" 

183. And of what we have said of the belief of Irenseus and his 
age as to the four Gospels, is not less true as to the book of Acts. 
He quotes it also (we have reckoned by the index in Grabe, and 
we are certain that Grabe has often omitted passages) more than 
sixty-four times ; and even sets himself to shew in his third book 
by a number of quotations, the harmony of this book of Luke with 
Paul's epistles. 

1 Chapter ix. of Book iii. in the Benedictine edition, but chap. xi. in Grabe's, 
pp. 214, 221. Tom. ii., p. 47, ed. Harvey. 

* P. 223, ed. Grabe. Tom. ii., p. 50, ed. Harvey. 
3 The Ebionites, Marcion, Marcus, and Valentine. 



170 



TESTIMONY OF THE FATHEKS. 



His belief is not at all less firm as to the other books of the 
canon. He adduces them in equal abundance. We have counted, 
for example, in Grabe's index, that Irenseus has cited the First 
Epistle to the Corinthians one hundred and seven times, the Epistle 
to the Eomans eighty-eight times, the Epistle to the Ephesians thirty- 
four times, the Epistle to the Galatians twenty-nine times, that to 
the Colossians twenty times, the Second to the Corinthians eighteen 
times, that to the Philippians eleven times, and the Eirst of Peter 
the same number ; the Second to the Thessalonians ten times, the 
Eirst to Timothy five times, the Second four times, the short Epistle 
to Titus three times, the Eirst Epistle of John three times, and the 
Eirst to the Thessalonians twice. In a word, he cites all the books 
of the canon. There is only the Epistle to Philemon which he has 
not occasion to mention. And is this strange ? This very short 
epistle, treating only of a point of domestic morals, having nothing 
doctrinal, had no chance of finding a place in a controversial work ; 
and we have elsewhere said that, at the same time, Tertullian men- 
tioned it in Africa, and that even the audacious Marcion acknow- 
ledged it as an epistle of Paul. J 

184. The testimony borne by Irenseus to the canon of the second 
century is, then, irrefragable; but to render it complete, it is 
desirable to shew by some quotations selected from the abundance 
in his work, how firm was the faith of this same age in the Divine 
inspiration of all these books, in their sufficiency and their author- 
ity. The passages that prove it in the course of his book are so 
numerous that we are at a loss which to select. Everywhere in 
its pages the Scriptures are the foundation of his faith ; by them 
it is to be re-established, and error is to be overturned ; they are 
the only universal and Divine rule ; and as Erasmus % has said, 
" Irenseus combats the squadrons of heretics by the weapons of the 
Scriptures alone." 

" In employing," he says in his fifth book, " these proofs which 
are taken from the Scriptures, {uteris his ostensionibus quae ex 
Scripturis,) you easily overturn, as we have shewn you, all those 
heretical sentiments which have been later imagined." 3 

The collection of our scriptures was already called by the name 

1 See above, Prop. 178. 2 Prsef. in Irenseum. 

3 Cap. xiv., p. 422, ed. Grabe, 1702. Tom, ii., p. 263, ed, Harvey. 



171 



of the New Testament ; and throughout, Irenaeus placed them in 
the same rank of authority as those of Moses and the prophets. 

" The precepts of a perfect life," he says in his fourth book, 
" being the same in either Testament, (in utroque Testamento cum 
sint eadem,) reveal to us the same God/' 1 

In his first book, Irenseus explains the doctrines of Valentine 
and his followers ; in the second, he points out their evil ; in the 
third, he confutes them by the Scriptures. Hear what he says at 
the beginning of the latter. " We had not known/' he says, " the 
plan of our salvation excepting by those who brought us the Gos- 
pel. They from the first proclaimed it with the living voice ; but 
then they have left us the tradition in the Scriptures by the will 
of God to be the foundation and pillar of faith after them." 2 

Elsewhere he says, 3 " In opposing the sound doctrine to the 
contradictions of heretics, following one teacher — the one and true 
God, and having His words for the rule of truth — we all say always 
the same things on the same points/' And again — " If we cannot 
find solutions for everything that we read in the Scriptures, we 
must leave these questions with God, who also has created us ; 
knowing on good grounds that the Scriptures are perfect, since 
they have been spoken by the Word of God and His Spirit, (rec- 
tissime scientes quia Scripturae quidem perfectae sunt, quippe a 
Verbo Dei et Spiritu ejus dictae.)" 4 

In the whole course of his five books, you meet with such ex- 
pressions as the following : 5 — « We prove it by the Scriptures " — 
" According to what we learn from the Scriptures, (sicut ex Scrip- 
turis discimus)" — " We have proved from the Scriptures, (ex Scrip- 
turis demons iravimus)" — " We have proved by the Dominical 
Scriptures " — " we must unfold (dvauTvatreai) all that is contained 
in the Scriptures ; if they had known the Scriptures, they would 
know " — " Let us return to the proof which is drawn from the 
Scriptures, (quae est de Scripturis)" — "Having for ourselves these 
proofs which are taken from the Scriptures, (nobis conaboranti- 

1 Chapter xii. in the Benedictine edition, and xxvi. in Grabe's, [chap, xxiii., ed. 
Harvey. Tom. ii., p. 178.] 3 Tom. ii., p. 2, ed. Harvey. 

3 Lib. iv., c. 69 ; Grabe, p. 368. Tom. ii., p. 276, ed. Harvey. 

4 Lib. ii., cap. 47, p. 173; Grabe, c. 41 ; ed. Harvey, torn, i., p. 349. 

5 III., 5; ii., 28; hi., 11; hi., 21; ii., 30; iii. 19; i., 10; ii., 13; ii., 16; iii., 12. 
Paris, 1710. 



172 



TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS. 



his ostensionibus quce ex Scripturis sunt) " — " The faith we main- 
tain is firm, real, not imaginary, and alone true " — " This faith re- 
ceiving from the Scriptures a manifest demonstration, {manifestam 
habens ostensionem ex his Scripturis.)" 1 

" John," he says elsewhere, 2 " wishing to establish a rule of 
truth in the Church, (yolens regulam veritatis constituere in 
Ecclesid), has thus spoken : — 

" * When we have refuted them by the Scriptures/ 3 he says of 
the heretics, (cum enim ex Sc?*ipturis arguuntur,) 'they turn 
round, and attack the Scriptures themselves, as if they erred, or 
expressed themselves improperly, or wanted authority, (neque sint 
ex autoritate,) or had different meanings, or were not sufficient to 
lead to the truth those who were not acquainted with tradition, 
because the truth, they said, was not given in writing, but by the 
living voice.' " 

185. Yet before we pass on, we must say a few words on the 
passages where this father appeals to apostolic tradition, and 
from which the Roman doctors believe that authority may be 
drawn for what is called among them in the present day, 
Tradition. It is easy to see that in Irenseus it means quite a 
different thing. He never understands by the term, as is done 
at Rome, an oral transmission, apocryphal, and continued we 
know not by whom, of dogmas not contained in Scripture, or 
even of dogmas opposed to its teaching. On the contrary, this 
term is employed most frequently by him as by the other fathers, 
to designate the Scriptures. " The apostles, (he has just told us, 
Prop. 182 ? ) after having preached the gospel with their living 
voice, have left us, by the will of God, the tradition of it in the 

Scriptures. (Evangelium postea per voluntatem Dei in 

Scripturis nobis tradiderunt)" The Scriptures, we see, are for 
Irenaeus, tradition, the true tradition ; " given by the will of God," 
he adds, " to be after them the foundation and pillar of Faith." 

" This interpretation of which we speak," 4 he says, " is in ac- 
cordance with the tradition of the apostles ; for Peter, and John, 

1 III., 25, p. 256, Grabe. Tom. ii., p. 115, ed. Harvey. 

2 III., 11, p. 213. Tom. ii., p. 41, ed. Harvey. 

3 III., 2, pp. 199, 200. Tom, ii., p, 7, ed. Harvey. 

4 III., 25, p. 256, Grabe. Tom. ii., p. 115, ed. Harvey, 



IKEN^EXJS. 



173 



and Matthew, and Paul have thus spoken. In fact, the same Spirit 
of God who spoke in the prophets has also announced in the 
apostles the fulness of the time, and the approach of the kingdom 
of heaven.''' 

" The fathers," the learned Mr Goode remarks, in his Divine 
Rule, 1 when speaking of Irenaeus, and especially of those who 
followed him, " constantly employ the terms Tradition and 
Apostolic Tradition, (f) aTToarokiKr] 7rapd8o(ns,) to designate the 
Scriptures ; and it is by a strange abuse that Messrs Newman 
and Keble cite them to support the totally different meaning 
given to this expression by the doctors of Kome." Mr Goode 
even shews that the passages from Athanasius, alleged by these 
authors in favour of tradition in the Eoman sense, speak precisely 
the contrary, and recommend only the Written Word. We may 
see, by numerous quotations from Irenaeus, Athanasius, Gregory 
of Nazianzus, Cyrill of Alexandria, Socrates the historian, Cy- 
prian, and even Jerome, that by Evangelical Tradition the fathers 
understood the Gospels as distinct from the Acts and the Epistles ; 
and by Apostolic Tradition, the Acts and Epistles of the 
apostles. 

It is very true that Irenaeus, like the rest of the fathers, some- 
times uses this expression to designate a still recent remembrance 
which was preserved of the apostles and their teaching, in the 
places where they had been heard ; but even then, he employs it 
in a sense quite different from that of the Eoman doctors. The 
heretics, when confounded by his quotations from the Scriptures, 
alleged the tradition of the apostles to justify their errors, and 
pretended to appeal to the wise teaching of these men of God. 
Irenaeus, to refute them, was eager to request that they should 
really consult that tradition of the apostles which was still acces- 
sible, that is to say, the remembrance of them which remained 
during his times in the churches founded by them. Nothing 
could be more rational. If in our day, for example, any one 
maintained, in our presence, some historical falsehood relative to 
the passage of the Alps effected by Bonaparte fifty-eight years ago, 
before the battle of Marengo ; and if the authors of the falsehood, 

1 Divine Rule of Faith and Practice. London, 1853. Vol. i., p. 68; also, 
vol. iii., pp. 23, 26. 



174 



TESTIMONY OF THE FATHEES. 



refusing the testimony of books, appealed to the oral traditions 
collected on the spot, we should be able, like Irenseus, to accept 
the challenge, to turn with confidence this source of information 
against them, and to challenge them to find in their favour any 
trustworthy testimony. But if, instead of Napoleon, the points in 
question regarded Hannibal, and, instead of the passage of the 
Alps by the Trench, that of the Carthaginians, two thousand and 
seventy-five years ago, we should look back upon it as an absurdity 
to appeal to local tradition, and should be perfectly sure that, at 
this distance of time, nothing could be expected from it. So it 
was with Irenseus. 

He never thought of a tradition infallible for ages, or trans- 
mitted from generation to generation without its being known 
how. But when the Valentinians, unable to impugn his arguments 
from Scripture, presumed to oppose to them the oral teaching of 
the apostles, his reply was, " We know it better than you, and we 
can easily recover it in the churches they founded." It was then 
only the second age of Christianity ; the living remembrance was 
preserved of the succession of bishops who had followed them ; in 
many places were still to be found (as Irenseus has told us) " men 
invested with charisms which they had received from an apostle,! 
or even some ancient believers who had conversed with the imme- 
diate disciples of Jesus Christ." It was, then, perfectly legitimate 
for the father to appeal to such reminiscences. " Dearly beloved," 
he exclaims at the beginning of his third book, 2 complaining of the 
Gnostics and their bad faith, " see the men with whom we have 
to combat. They glide under all our proofs like serpents, and so 
it comes to pass that they will not submit to the Scriptures at 
first, nor even to tradition afterwards, (evenit itaque neque Scrip- 
turis jam, neque traditioni consentire eos.) Thus, in all the 
Church, the men who wish to see the truth can recognise the 
tradition of the apostles rendered manifest to the whole world. 
We have only to enumerate the bishops instituted by them in the 
different churches and their successors down to ourselves : they 
have never taught anything nor known anything similar to the 
absurdities in which these teachers indulge, (qui nihil tale docue- 

1 See above, Prop. 180. 

2 III., ii., p. 200, Grabe. Tom. ii., p. 8, ed. Harvey. 



TSESSMU3. 



175 



runt neqae cognoverunt, quale ab his deliratur)" And is the 
two chapters that follow, 1 Ireneeus aims again to confound his 
Marcionite and Valentinian opponents by the very kind of testi- 
mony they dared to call in, in the first, which he entitles, " Of the 
Succession of Bishops since the Apostles/' and in the second, 
entitled, "The Testimony of Those who saw the Apostles, con- 
cerning the Preaching of the Truth." 

We see, then, what Irenseus meant by the term Tradition was 
a recent and tangible tradition, (yeterem traditionem apostolo- 
rum;) not a late, apocryphal, untraceable tradition, such as the 
bishops of Eome appeal to after 1700 years. Irenseus meant a 
human and fallible, though well-informed, tradition ; not that so- 
called Divine and infallible, though very misinformed, tradition 
which the Council of Trent has presumed to put on a level 2 with 
the Scriptures, and even above them. 3 

Further ; These reminiscences of the apostles, which might still be 
recovered in the local traditions, Irenseus, whatever respect he had 
for them, never failed to subject to the control of the Sacred 
Scriptures. He never admitted any tradition, however near it 
might be, if it taught what was not taught by the written Word. 
And in that famous epistle to Florinus 4 which we have quoted, 
you see, after calling to mind the recitals of Polycarp respecting 
John, and those of John respecting Jesus Christ, he takes care to 
add that these traditions reported by that holy bishop respecting 
John and Jesus Christ were all conformable to the Scriptures, 
(airrpfyeXXe irdvra avfKpcova rat? ^pa^als.) So sensitive on this 
point was his holy jealousy for the supremacy of the written 
Word. 

" Having for our rule," he says in his second book,5 " the very 
truth and the testimony concerning God fully revealed, (et in 
aperto positum de Deo testimonium,) we ought not, by allowing 
ourselves to go hither and thither in search of other solutions of 
the questions, to reject the firm and true knowledge of God. 
What if we cannot find an answer to all the difficulties presented 

1 III. and iv., pp. 200, 205, ed. Oxon., 1706. Tom. ii., pp. 8, 15, ed. Harvey. 

2 " Pari pietatis et reverentiae affectu." — Session 4, first decree. 

3 Ibid., second decree, 28th April 154G. 4 See Prop. 180. 
8 Cap. xlvii., p. 173, ed. Oxon., 1702. Tom. i., p. 349, ed. Harvey. 



176 



TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS. 



in the Scriptures ? . . . . We ought to leave them to God, who 
also created us, (Prop. ] 84,) knowing assuredly that the Scriptures 
are perfect, because they have been uttered by the Word of God 
and His Spirit/' 

" It is thus by making use of those proofs which are taken from 
the Scriptures, (his ostensionibus quae sunt ex Scripturis,) you wiH 
easily overturn all those false notions which have been since 
devised, (facile evertis .... omnes eas, quae postea affictae sunt, 
haereticorum sententias.) " 1 

" And if any one should ask 2 us what did God do before He 
created the world ? we say that the answer is God's concern. For 
the Scriptures teach us that this world, created perfect, had its 
beginning in time ; but what God did before this, no Scripture 
informs us, (nulla Scriptura manifestat.) It is, then, a question 
which concerns God alone, and must be left to His sovereignty 
(subjacet ergo haec responsio Deo)" 

To sum up all in one word, Irenseus declares of the Valen- 
tinians, " that in relying on traditions not contained in the Scrip- 
tures, they are making a rope of sand." " When they go on in 
this manner/' 3 he says, "and advance what neither the prophets 
proclaimed, nor the Lord taught, nor the apostles delivered, 
(7rape8o/cav,) pretending to know more than others, by making 
allegations that are not taken from what is written, (ef a<ypdcj)cov 
avayivaxTfcovres,) they only busy themselves with twisting ropes 
of sand, (ef cIjjl/jlov ayoivia ifkeiceiv eVtT^SetWTe^)" 

Section Sixth. 

other contemporary fathers. 

186. Such was Irenseus ; such were Clement and Tertullian ; 
such was the second half of the second century in the East and 
West, and such was its canon. But if we have thought it proper 
to cite so copiously these three illustrious fathers, on account of 
the immense weight of their testimony, it is not because we cannot 
adduce others of the same period, and of whom some short writings 

1 V., 14, p. 422. Torn, ii., p. 363, ed. Harvey. 

2 II., 47. Tom. i., p. 352, ed. Harvey. 

3 I., 1, § 15, p. 35. Tom. i., p. 66, ed. Harvey. 



DIONYSIUS, UEBANUS, ATHENAGOEAS. 



177 



remain to us, or fragments preserved by Eusebius. We wish to 
speak of Theophilus, bishop of Antioch, converted in 150, and 
author of an Apology, which is still extant ; — of Athenagoras, a 
philosopher of Athens, converted to Christianity, and flourishing 
in 177; — of Dionysius, bishop of Corinth about 170, and martyr 
in 178 ; — and, lastly, of Asterius Urbanus, bishop or teacher of 
the churches of Galatia, to whom he preached with power in the 
city of Ancyra about the year 188. 

187. Dionysius of Coeinth, Eusebius tells us, (Hist. Eccl., iv., 
23,) complains that, having written some letters, " there had been 
forgers, ministers of the devil, who had falsified them ; but can I 
be surprised," he adds, " since even some persons have attempted 
to tamper with the Dominical Scriptures, (it kcli tcov fcvpia/cotv 
paSiovpyrjcraL rives i7rLj3e/3\r]VTcu ypa<fia)v.) " It is thus he names 
the New Testament. 

Asteeius Uebanus wrote, Eusebius tells us, 1 three books against 
the Montanists. " I hesitated for some time to publish them," said 
Urbanus ; " not that I had any doubts on the duty of bearing 
witness to the truth, but for fear of appearing to go in any degree 
beyond what is written, and to determine anything beyond the 
word of the New Testament of the gospel, from which nothing 
can be taken away, and to which nothing can be added, whoever 
is resolved to regulate his life according to that same gospel, 
(e5 /JLrjTe irpocrOelvcu /jltjt a(f>e\eiv Svvarov, tw Kara to evayyekiov 
avrb TrokirevecrOcu TTporjprjfievw^' Thus this doctor in Galatia 
spoke nearly a hundred years after St Paul. Not only he wished 
that the life should be governed according to the word of the New 
Testament, but he would admit no other tradition of Jesus Christ 
and the apostles. 

Athenagoeas, though the nature of his writings calls less for 
citations from the Scriptures, presents us with many passages 
borrowed either from the Gospels or the Epistles. For example : 
" It is evident," he says, in a treatise on the Resurrection of the 
Dead, 2 "according to the apostle, that this corruptible must put 
on incorruption, ( on 8et Kara rov airoaroXov) in order that, the 
dead being restored to life by the resurrection, each one may 

1 Hist. Eccl., v., 1G, p. 228. Ed. Reading, vol. i. 2 Pp. Gl, G2. 

M 



178 



THEOPHILUS OF ANTIOCH. 



receive justly according to what he has done in his body, whether 
good or evil." I 

Theophilus of Antioch is still more precise. Converted, it is 
said, in mature life, by the power of the gospel in the year 150, he 
composed, Jerome tells us, 2 Commentaries on the Four Gospels, 
books against Marcion and Hermogenes, and catechetical works, 
entirely lost. But we can here adduce numerous passages from 
his Apologetic Treatise, in three books, to his ancient friend Au- 
tolycus, still a pagan and a violent opponent of Christianity. He 
often cites the Gospels and Epistles, but indicates them in general 
terms, as he needs must in addressing pagans. Let us give a few 
examples. 

Observe how, among other things, he enforces on Autolycus 3 the 
inspiration of the scriptures of the Old and New Testament : — 
" But as to the righteousness of which the law has spoken, we find 
analogous things both in the prophets and the evangelists, (clko- 
XovOa evpiaKerai /cal rcov 7rpo<fir)T(bv Kal tcov evaryyekLarcov e^et^,) 
because all inspired men (pneumatophori) have spoken by one and 
the same Spirit of God, (Sea rb tovs iravras irvev fiarcxpopovs evl 
Trvevfiari Oeov XekaXnicevaC). 

Notice, again, how he cites the fifth chapter of the Gospel of 
Matthew : — " But the evangelic voice recommends chastity with 
still greater force, when it says, Whosoever looketh on a woman to 
lust after her, &c, and whoever shall marry her that is put 
away, committeth adultery, &c. ; and so again for charity, the 
evangelic histoey says, Love your enemies, pray for them that 
persecute you, &c. ; and again, for humility, the Gospel says, Let 
not thy left hand know, &c. 

Observe, again, how he cites the Epistle to the Eomans (xiii. 7, 
8) : — " The Divine Wisdom* commands us to render to every one 
their due, honour to whom honour, fear to whom fear, tribute to 
whom tribute, and to owe nothing to others unless to love all." 
And the first Epistle to Timothy (ii. 2) : — " Besides this, our Divine 

1 These are the words of Paul, 1 Cor. xv. 54, and 2 Cor. v. 10. 

2 In a letter to Algasius, (torn, iv., p. 197; Bale, 1537.) See his Prooemium in 
Matthaeum. 3 Lib. iii., p. 126. 

4 Ad Autolycum, lib. iii., p. 126. " Divina Sapientia," (at least in the Latin 
version.) 



RESULT OF THESE TESTIMONIES. 



179 



Woed, (tjiiwv 6 em X070?,) as to the duty of subjection to magis- 
trates, commands even to pray for them that all may lead a 
peaceable and tranquil life." And in his second book, speaking 
of the inspired Scriptures collectively, and of the Gospel of John, 
" Mark," said he, " what the Holy Scriptures and all the pneuma- 
tophori (jcai irdvre^ ol 7rvevfiaro(f)6pot) teach us, of whose number 
John has said^ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was 
God," &c.i 

Such, then, was the second century in its latter half, and such the 
firmness of its faith in the first canon. 

What, then, do we infer from all these testimonies, so unanimous 
and so. powerful, which come at once from Antioch, from Galatia, 
from Macedonia, from Carthage, and from Gaul ? 

Section Seventh, 
the eesult of all these testimonies. 

188. We must first of all clearly understand that these quota- 
tions do not only express to us the unanimous personal persuasion 
of all these great teachers, so different in position, character, and 
nationality; not only the faith of the contemporary Church, not only 
the very great firmness, as Irenseus said, of this faith as to the four 
evangelists, (tanta circa evangelia haec firmitas,) its very great 
firmness respecting the book of Acts and the thirteen Epistles of 
Paul, as well as the two Epistles of Peter and John ; but above 
all, that which these testimonies confirm to us with irresistible 
power is, the historic legitimacy of this faith, — the necessarily 
apostolic origin of all these twenty books, — their perfect and indis- 
putable authenticity. And this proof itself is so powerful, that it 
may, we think, suffice alone, though we had not all the others, 
neither those that precede, nor those that follow. 

Let us carry ourselves back in thought to the age so near the 
apostles in which these teachers lived, and ask how it could have 
been possible, if the unanimity of all the churches on the subject 
of the twenty books had not commenced during the lifetime of 
the apostles, that, in only fifty years from the death of John, a 
conviction so perfectly unanimous, so calm, and so self-assured, 

1 Lib. ii., p. 100. 



180 



RESULT OF THESE TESTIMONIES. 



could, in so short a time, pervade the whole Christian world. 
How otherwise can this vast phenomenon be explained ? Who 
can tell by what other process this persuasion could be formed 
from one end of the empire to the other, — formed among the 
Latins as well as the Greeks, among the Celts as well as the 
Syrians, — formed in such a manner that not only these books 
were everywhere received as divinely inspired, but everywhere 
without the least shadow of debate ; everywhere attributing them 
to the same authors, although their names were not inscribed; 
everywhere classing them in the canon in the same order ; every- 
where four Gospels, neither more nor fewer, says Irenseus, (per tot 
et tarda demonstravimus sola ilia vera et firma;) everywhere 
first Matthew, then Mark, then Luke, then John, and everywhere 
attributing the first and fourth to apostles, the second and third to 
inspired men (pneumatophori) who were not apostles, while no 
sign seemed to point out the authors in any of the three synoptic 
evangelists ; everywhere, lastly, the book of Acts attributed to 
Luke ; then, again, everywhere the thirteen epistles of Paul 
always placed in the same order, which was by no means the 
order of time ; everywhere at their head the epistle to the Romans ; 
then those to the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Ephesians, the 
Philippians, the Colossians, the Thessalonians ; then to Timothy, 
Titus, and Philemon ; then the two epistles of Peter and John ; 
for, as we have said, these twenty books have never changed 
their respective places j 1 that one of these two epistles which was 
written from Babylon having made its way among the churches 
of Africa or Gaul, to take its place there, as the letters written 
from the prisons of Eome made theirs among the Greek churches 
of Egypt, or the Syrian churches of Adiabene ? 

189. How, then, can we account for this unanimity, at once so 
peaceable and so firm, on the subject of the twenty books, unless 
by admitting the only reasonable explanation that can be given ; I 
mean, unless by recognising in this universal agreement a consent 
begun during the life of the apostles, and under their influence, 
and borne peaceably over the whole habitable globe in proportion 

1 Some have placed the Acts at the end of the epistles, and some others have 
placed the catholic epistles before St Paul's thirteen ; but the latter have always 
in other respects, like the four evangelists, preserved their respective order. 



CONSENT DURING- THE LIFE OF THE APOSTLES. 



181 



as the Church was extended? Moreover, this fact results very 
naturally, as we have already said, from that other, that almost all 
the apostles governed, during more than thirty years, the innumer- 
able churches founded by them ; some for a much longer time, 
and John himself for seventy years. Setting aside this explana- 
tion, which gives a reason for everything, how can it be explained 
that, in the short space of half a century, any one of the twenty 
books of the canon came to be received without any opposition 
throughout the world by all the teachers, all the bishops, and all 
the churches ; everywhere taking its fixed place in their canon ; 
everywhere in silence ; everywhere, at least, without leaving in 
any part of the Church the slightest trace of any challenge ? And 
this among such believers as were the Christians of the second 
century, among influential, learned teachers, connected with both 
the East and West, vigilant, zealous, and ready to suffer martyr- 
dom, among men so jealously careful of the slightest apostolic 
reminiscences that you see them at the very time holding councils, 
and on the very point of excommunicating one another 1 in the 
East and West. And for what ? — for an unimportant difference as 
to the time of keeping Easter, some having learned from their 
predecessors in the East to celebrate it, like the ancient Jews, on 
the fourteenth day of the month of March ; others having been 
taught in the West to defer it to the following Sunday. To check 
Victor's fiery temper, was not the pious wisdom of Irenaeus re- 
quired, and the severe letters of many other bishops, who, even in 
the West, enjoined upon him (avTLTrapafceXevovTcu) to alter his 
language ? 2 

Have we ever seen anywhere in so short a time an agreement 
suddenly formed, so perfect as that in the Church, from one end 
of the earth to the other, on a subject of such great importance as 
the apostolic authenticity of twenty sacred books ? Would it be 
an easy matter, in our day, to deceive all Europe on the subject of 
works which it has agreed to attribute to men deceased only in 
the year 1800 — Lavater, Saussure, Mallet-Dupan, Kant, Necker, 

1 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., v., 23. See what he says of Irenoeus, of Polycrates, of 
Palraas, of Victor, of Bachyllus. 

3 See Socrates, Hist. Eccl., v., 22. This controversy did not terminate till 
thirty-five years later, at the Council of Nice. 



182 



EESULT OF THESE TESTIMONIES. 



Blair, or Klopstock ? Could we receive without protest these new 
works, unknown to their contemporaries, unknown to every one, to 
this day ? Would it even be possible to receive easily and without 
discussion, in literature, apocryphal works of Voltaire or of Kous- 
seau, who died eighty years ago? And yet the world is very 
slightly interested in settling about such men the legitimacy of 
any works that may be attributed to them, while in the time of 
Irenseus and Tertullian, for the sacred books, the issue involved 
all the churches, all the Christians on the face of the globe. The 
question for all regarded the Word of Life, and in its profession 
or defence they were ready to lay down their lives. 

190. And let no one think of adducing as a parallel to this 
incomparable unanimity of the second century on the canon, that 
presented by Roman Catholicism in the present day on all the 
dogmas which separate it from evangelical Christianity. 

Do we not know the commotion each of these heresies made in 
all quarters before it could be imposed on the world ? Do we not 
know that councils and popes shook empires by long wars before 
reception was given first to the worship of images, and invocation 
of the dead, and then to the celibacy of the clergy, the depression 
of the bishops, the withholding the cup, and transubstantiation ? 
And even in our day do we not know that only after ages of 
violent controversy Eome has been able to promulgate her new 
doctrine about Mary? 1 - It was totally different with the unani- 
mity of the churches on the first canon in the second century. 
You could not then see throughout the Christian world, on this 
subject, the slightest trace of a difference of opinion either in the 
East or West ; and you know that 150 years later, when Eusebius 
called the twenty-two books of the first canon and the second-first 
homologoumena, or uncontroverted, he meant to say, that these 
scriptures had never been disputed anywhere ; while in speaking 
of the five short late epistles he calls them antilegomena, or con- 
troverted, to intimate that though acknowledged by the majority 
they yet had been with others the subject of discussion. But as 
to the twenty-two homologoumena, looking at the past in history 

1 See the learned work recently published on this subject by M. L. Durand at 
Brussels, 1859. 



UNIVEBSAL AGREEMENT OF THE CHURCHES. 



183 



to the farthest limits of the horizon, it was impossible for him to 
discover a vestige of the least opposition. 

We have here a right to ask how this universal agreement can 
be accounted for, if it is not acknowledged that these books had 
been received by all the churches before the apostles had ended 
their career. We ask what an immensity of influence in some, 
and of imbecility in others, must have been required for any one 
of the four Gospels, or the book of Acts, or any one of the fifteen 
apostolic epistles, to have taken its place, after the death of the 
apostles, without discussion, in the canon of all the churches. In 
truth, this twofold miracle of cleverness on the one side, and 
ignorance on the other, surpasses very far in improbability all the 
legends of the Middle Ages, and would demand in our opponents a 
larger amount of faith than the gospel requires of believers, to 
make them admit that our holy books have been given by the Holy 
Spirit sent down from heaven. 

191. To assert that since John's death, Christians all over the 
world have received as apostolic, books which the apostles never put 
forth, — that they received them, without demur or examination, 
from one end of the empire to the other, and admitted them every- 
where to be publicly read, — that even the apostolic churches of 
Kome, Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, Thessalonica, and Galatia, re- 
ceived them as if these books had been addressed to them eighty 
years before, while, in fact, nothing was known of them till the 
middle of the second century ; to assert that all these churches 
agreed entirely to give these new books in the collected form of a 
canon, a rank everywhere the same and invariable ; to assert that 
they were all deceived at the same time, all in the same manner, 
in Egypt, in Gaul, in Greece, in Africa ; that all practised the 
most silent submission about the same books, and the same names 
of authors — verily, this surpasses all the limits of possibility. 

Certainly, we grant, it is not thus that deception is practised, 
nor is it thus that persons err when they are deceived. So many 
people seduced from the path of truth do not advance with this 
perfect unanimity towards the same mass of errors, especially 
when they have to do with numerous and definite facts — such, for 
example, as the reception of twenty- two writings attributed to five 



184 



EESULT OF THESE TESTIMONIES. 



different authors. The chances of error are diverse in a multitude 
who have lost their way ; and we may well say of this unanimity 
what the great Tertullian 1 said in the same age, when, speaking on 
another subject, he exclaimed, "Is it probable that so great a 
number of churches, and such large ones, should meet in one and 
the same faith, while all were walking in error, (ecquid versimile 
est ut tot et tanta in unam fidem erraverint ?) Among so many 
persons, and so many different chances, the issue could not be the 
same ; and when you find in this great number one single iden- 
tical thought, this must proceed, not from error, but from tradi- 
tion, (Nullus inter multos eventus unus est. Quod apud multos 
unum invenitur, non est erratum, sed traditum.)" 

192. We conclude, then, after hearing all these voices of the 
second century in its second half, that, not to fall into absurdity, 
we must recognise, with all simplicity, the fact, (otherwise mani- 
fest on so many other grounds,) the only fact which furnishes a 
satisfactory reason — namely, that all the homologoumena were 
already collected before St John's death, and that the Christians 
of the second century only held them so firmly because their pre- 
decessors had received them from the apostles. 

And thus we conclude that the testimony of the latter half of 
the second century is sufficient of itself to establish the historic 
certainty of the first canon ; that is to say, the incontestable 
apostolic authenticity of all the sacred books of which it is com- 
posed. 

These books are, as we have said,2 eight-ninths of the New Tes- 
tament ; but since almost the whole body of these historic proofs 
apply (as we shall immediately see) to two other books, which, 
Eusebius says, were always uncontroverted for the two first cen- 
turies of the Church, it results that our proofs attest, by the voice 
of history alone, the authenticity of thirty-five thirty-sixths of the 
New Testament. 

Yet we shall furnish fresh proofs ; for our records mount higher, 
and give us witnesses of the first half of the second century, or 
even of the last years of the first. These latter join hands with 
the apostolic fathers, who saw with their own eyes the messengers 

1 De Praescript. Haereticor., cap. xxviii. 

2 Prop. 26. 



UNIVERSAL AGREEMENT OF THE CHUECHES. 185 

of the Lord; and these fathers, in their turn, join hands with 
the apostles, who speak to us sometimes themselves of some of the 
writings of the New Testament. 

However, before hearing the writers of the first half of the 
second century, it will be desirable to examine more closely that 
very remarkable record which we owe to the researches of Mura- 
tori, for it seems to take its proper place between the first and 
second half of the second century. 



CHAPTER VL 

THE FRAGMENT CALLED MURATORl'S. 

1 93. More than a century ago, this document was only known to 
the learned world by the publication 1 of the celebrated antiquary 
who discovered it in 1738 in a very ancient Latin manuscript of 
the Ambrosian Library of Milan. But more recently, we have 
seen three independent editions, made from the original by Nott, 2 
Wieseler,3 and Hertz. 4 

The manuscript itself, in uncial characters, and without any 
interval between the words, presents a strange state of disorder — 
whether owing to the translator, whose Latin is full of gross mis- 
takes, or to the editor and copyist, whose sentences appear very 
often transposed and suddenly interrupted. 5 This state of the 
manuscript, as well as our ignorance of its precise date, of its 
author, and even of the character of the whole composition, (for it 
appears to have made part of an apologetic dialogue against some 
contemporary heretic,) — all these circumstances united (we have 
already said 6 ) have prevented our drawing precise conclusions 
from it in our history of the Canon ; but the incontestable anti- 
quity of the manuscript makes it, notwithstanding, a document 
most worthy of attention. 

1 Antiq. Ital. Medii Aevi. Milan, 1740. 

2 See Dr Routh's Reliquiae Sacrae, (2d ed., 1846,) i., 394, 403. 

3 See Studien u. Krit., 1847, p. 815, and 1856, part i. 

4 See Bunsen's Analecta Ante-Nicaena, i., p. 137, &c. 

5 Any one may judge of this for himself, by looking at the exact copy given by 
Credner in his Geschichte der Canons, p. 71, &c, 1847. It may be also found in 
Mr Westcott's work on the Canon, at the end of the volume, p. 557. Cambridge, 
1855. 6 Prop. 81. 



FRAGMENT OF MUBATORI. 



187 



Muratori assigns the authorship to Caius ; Bunsen to Hippoly- 
tus ; others, with equal right, suppose it to be of a more recent 
date. These are mere conjectures : it is enough for us to know 
that the author says he was a contemporary of Pius I, (the ninth 
bishop of Eome, from 145 to 157,) and that he must be necessarily 
younger than the heretics of the second century, whose striking 
testimony we are soon about to examine ; for he speaks of Marcion, 
Valentine, Basilides, and even the Cataphrygians ; and this is why, 
in our going back from a later to an earlier period, we give him a 
place here. 

It is generally admitted that it was originally written in Greek ; 
for this language was then the most used in the Church of Kome ; 
— the language of Paul, Peter, Timothy, and Luke ; the language 
of Clement and of Pius I., as well as of Justin Martyr, Hermas, 
Tatian, Caius, and Hippolytus. It was the language of Ireneeus 
when he wrote from Lyons, though at Lyons itself he conversed 
habitually in Celtic. 1 It was also the language of the first liturgies 
of the Roman Church, and of its first sermons. 2 

1 94. But this ancient fragment, in its obscure language, gives a 
very clear testimony to our first canon, and we find in it, as we 
are about to state, a remarkable catalogue of our sacred books. 
Although the first words are wanting, and the manuscript begins 
in the middle of a phrase, you see at once that the writer is ex 
plaining how the four Evangelists were given. 

" The Gospel according to Luke," he says, " is the third/' 
(these words are written in red capitals ;) and, forthwith, the 
author enters into details on the person of Luke. 

" The fourth Gospel," he adds, " is that of John, one of 
the disciples." Then follow, on the person of John, fresh par- 
ticulars, in which these two important statements occur. 

The first statement is, that in the very variety of the teachings 
of each of the Gospels, there is no difference as to the faith of 
believers, {nihil tamen differt credentium fidei,) since in all, by 
one and the same sovereign Spirit, (cum uno et principali Spiritu,) 
all things are declared (declarata sint in omnibus omnia) touching 
the Saviour's nativity, His passion, His resurrection, His conversa- 
tions with His disciples, and His double advent — the first, already 

1 Irenseus, Haeres., i., npoolynov, p. 3. 2 Bunscn'a Hippolytus, ii., 123. 



188 



FKAGMENT OF MURATORI. 



passed, in humiliation ; the second, yet to come, in the glory of 
His kingly power. 

The second statement is, that John calls himself not only the 
spectator and hearer, but also the narrator of all the miracles of 
the Lord ; since he declares the same things in his Epistles, 
(singula etiam in Epistolis suis proferat, 1 ) and since he says, 
speaking of himself, — " The things we have seen with our eyes, 
which we have heard with our ears, and which our hands have 
touched, (palpaverunt,) this is what we have written." 

195. We see, then, on the one hand, the four Gospels announced 
in the fragment as forming a distinct unity, and universally recog- 
nised as to their design, their contents, and their inspiration. No 
difference is made between the two apostles (Matthew or John) 
and those of the two evangelists (Mark or Luke ;) they have all 
four the same authority in the Church ; they are the work of one 
and the same Spirit ; not a doubt is admitted or mentioned. And 
then, on the other hand, we see the Epistles of John recognised 
equally as written by the same apostle, in order to give us the 
same teachings as his Gospel. The fragment even cites the first 
verse of his first Epistle (1 John i. 1.) 

196. After this Gospel comes the Acts. 

" But the Acts of all the Apostles," the fragment says, " have 
been written in a single book by Luke, who addressed it to the ex- 
cellent Theophilus, telling him things of which he was an eye- 
witness, and for this reason not reporting either the martyrdom 
of Peter, or Paul's journey to Spain." 

Then come the thirteen Epistles of Paul. 

" Now the Epistles of Paul," continues the fragment, " declare 
to those who wish to understand it from what place, and for what 
reasons, they were written." 

The author here enumerates them all, but in an order different 
from that we have been accustomed to follow, and evidently de- 
termined by the particular object which he is pleased to attribute 
to the apostles for each of them. " Paul," he says, " addresses his 
letters to seven churches, having doubled those which he wrote to 
the Corinthians and the Thessalonians. Nevertheless," he adds, " it 

1 The text has profaram, but in these quotations we have corrected (as Bunsen, 
Hartz, and Wieseler have done) the manifest errors and barbarisms of the text. 



FRAGMENT OF MUEATORI. 



189 



must be acknowledged that there is but one Church alone spread 
over all the globe, (una tamen per omnem orbem terrae ecclesia 
diffusa esse dignoscitur,) and for this reason, John, in the Apo- 
calypse, even when he writes to seven churches, addresses him- 
self to all. But, besides these letters to seven churches, Paul 
wrote one to Philemon, one to Titus, and two to Timothy/' 

197. Let it be carefully noticed that the whole of our first 
canon is repeated in this fragment, with the single exception of 
the First Epistle of Peter, which certainly has its place elsewhere 
in the same document, as we shall proceed to shew ; and there 
are equally recognised (we may observe in passing) the Apocalypse 
and the two short Epistles of John, and also the general Epistle of 
Jude.l 

But at this point the fragment, in its disorder, proceeds to 
name some other books which, according to it, were illegitimate. 
" There are reported, also, (Jertur etiam,)" it says, " an epistle to 
the Laodiceans, and another to the Alexandrians, invented under 
the name of Paul to aid the heresy of Marcion, and many others 
which cannot be received into the Catholic Church j for it is not 
fit to mingle gall with honey." 

The Epistle of Jude, indeed, (sane,) he adds, and 2 two epistles 
of John, of which we have spoken above, (et superscript Johannis 
duae,) are reckoned among the catholic epistles, (in catholica 
habentur.) 

198. It must be carefully noted here that the fragment which, 
in reference to Jude and John, has just named them catholic 
epistles, does not enumerate the group in its usual place. This 
group should be found, as in general, either following the Acts or 
following Paul's epistles. Every one in fact admits that, in its 
actual disorder, the document evidently betrays transpositions and 
lacunae. This explains why the first catholic Epistle of Peter, 
which has never been doubted anywhere, and which, with the 
first of John, forms the kernel of the catholic Epistles, which had 
just been spoken of, is not here mentioned, any more than that of 

1 Wieseler (Stud. u. Krit., 1856, p. 98) thinks that the Epistle to the Hebrews 
is also designated by the words, Alia ad Alcxandrinos, (to the Egyptian Diaspora.) 
It would have for its readers, he says, the J ewish Christians of Alexandria. 

2 Two, or the two ; Bunscn alone has written in Catholicis. 



190 



FRAGMENT OF MUEATORI. 



James ; while the first of John has been mentioned, as if by- 
chance and out of its place. This defect is easily explained by 
the fragmentary state of the document, by which the connexion 
of the parts is so frequently interrupted. 

In fact, having arrived so far, the manuscript goes on with this 
strange sentence on the book of Proverbs : " And the wisdom 
written," he says, "by the friends of Solomon in his honour." 
This expression, which occurs so strangely in a place where no 
one would expect it, would be absolutely unintelligible, if we did 
not see in it (as Bunsen thinks) a fragmentary allusion to the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, which, like the Book of Solomon, had 
been written by some friend of Paul, and not by himself. 

Lastly, the document adds, " We receive only the {Apocalypses) 
Eevelations of John and of Peter. And some of our people are 
not willing that the latter should be read in the church/' 

It is immediately in connexion with these words that he men- 
tions, on the one hand, Hermas, and, on the other, the principal 
heretics of the age. " Hermas," he says, " has written in our day 
in Eome, The Shepherd, during the time that Pius, his brother, 
filled the see of the church of Eome. It should be read; but 
cannot be published to the people in church, neither among the 
prophets, of which the number is complete, nor among the 
apostles, to the end of time. As to Arsinous, or Valentine, or 
Miltiades, we absolutely receive nothing of theirs. Some psalms, 
also have been attributed to Marcion and to Basilides ; and as to 
the chief of the Cataphrygians of Asia " 

Here the fragment ends abruptly. Whatever may be thought 
of these latter details, on which we do not wish to dwell, we see 
sufficiently the remarkable testimony which this ancient document, 
with all its want of arrangement, bears to our first canon. 

We pass now to the first half of the second century. 



CHAPTEE VIL 



THE TESTIMONY OF THE FIEST HALF OF THE SECOND CENTUEY. 

199. We have some important witnesses to produce during this 
epoch ; but we must observe that the chronological divisions of 
these ancient times are necessarily deficient in exactness. For as 
Irenseus might be classed in this period by the date of his birth, 
and the acts of his youth, so there are many of the apostolic 
fathers, of whom we cannot speak but under the head of the 
first century, although they made themselves heard also in the 
second. After all, it has appeared most convenient to classify 
both the one and the others by the most active years of their 
ministry. 

Section First. 

justin martyr. 

200. At the middle of the second century, if we go back till 
towards the end of Trajan's reign, (who died in 117,) in traversing 
the long reigns of Antoninus Pius and Hadrian, we arrive at a 
more extensive diffusion of the gospel, — at the first general per- 
secutions, and the first Apologies published in order to arrest their 
course, — and likewise at the first great Gnostic sects, and the writ- 
ings, already numerous, which combated them. This period, so 
important from its proximity to the origin of Christianity, and yet 
so troubled by imperial violence without, and by heresies within, 
gave birth to numerous publications which are now lost, letters, 
chronicles, controversies, treatises, dogmatic essays, and especially 
apologies, all written in Greek. It might be styled " the age of 
Greek Apologists." Almost all these books have perished, and 



192 



THE AGE OF GREEK APOLOGISTS. 



we have scarcely any knowledge of the writers and their writings 
excepting by the accounts of Eusebius. If we cast our eyes over 
the list of the fathers, (Prop. 168,) we shall see that, confining 
ourselves to those who were born in the second century, and 
reserving the apostolic fathers for the following section, there 
remains scarcely any one to be noticed here but Justin Martyr. 
In fact, though Theophilus of Antioch was born about the year 
110, we have been obliged to place him in the latter half of the 
second century, because he was not converted from paganism till 
about the year 150. And, on the other hand, we cannot adduce 
as testimonies with Justin any of the contemporary authors enu- 
merated by Eusebius, because there are none of their works extant. 
Neither that Hegesippus, who, after Luke, is the most ancient 
ecclesiastical historian ; nor that Dionysius of Corinth, of whom 
there were eight letters, 1 and of which we regret, above all, that 
which he wrote to the church of Nicomedia against the errors of 
Marcion, because it would, no doubt, have furnished us with 
abundant quotations from the New Testament ; nor that Qua- 
dratus, bishop of Athens, who by his Apology, presented in 131 to 
the Emperor Hadrian, stayed, it is said, the course of that persecu- 
tion ; nor that Aristides, a Christian philosopher of the same city, 
who had addressed one to the same prince, five years before, in 
125 ; nor even, which is still more to be regretted, that Philip, 2 
bishop of Gortyna, who also wrote against Marcion ; nor that 
Agrippa Castor, still more ancient, whom Eusebius calls most 
celebrated, (yvoypi/jLcorarov,) and who composed, he says, twenty- 
four books on the Gospels. 3 " A most able refutation," (l/cavco- 
raros e'Xe7^o?,) published by him about the year 132, against the 
exegetic books of Basilides, would, no doubt, have also furnished 
us with very copious quotations from the New Testament. 

Yet we shall presently say a few words about these authors 
whose works are now lost, because the fragments Eusebius has 
preserved for us remarkably confirm, brief as they are, the testi- 
mony of Justin Martyr, and lead us to admire that beautiful and 
strong chain of testimonies which by successive links reaches from 
Origen to the apostles. 

1 Mentioned by Eusebius, H. E., iv., 23, and by Jerome, De Scriptor. Illustr., 
cap. 27. 2 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., iv., 25. 3 Book vi., ch. vii., &c., ch. xxv. 



JUSTIN MARTYR. 



193 



201. Nevertheless, if, by the loss of these literary monuments, 
Justin presents himself to us in this important period as an almost 
isolated witness, it would be difficult to imagine one better quali- 
fied. We shall not repeat here what we have already said on the 
subject of anagnosis, (Prop. 161.) His career embraces the first 
sixty-seven years of the second century, and more especially the 
thirty-four years which elapsed from his conversion till his mar- 
tyrdom. The son of a Greek family resident in Samaria, Justin 
was born at Neapolis (the ancient Shechem) under the reign of 
Trajan, in the same year in which the apostle John died. He 
was so near the days of the apostles, that in his time, as he said 
himself, the prophetic Charisms still existed. Thirty years after- 
wards, converted in Egypt from the pagan philosophy of Plato to 
the living faith of Jesus Christ, at the end of seven years he 
established himself in Italy — in Eome itself — on Mount Viminal, 
to give lectures on what he called "the Christian philosophy." 
There, in the year 144, he had the courage to present to the 
emperor, to his son, and to the Roman senate, his first and most 
important Apology. 1 At a later period, having removed to 
Asia Minor, he held in the Xystus of Ephesus that apologetic 
conference with the most celebrated Jew of his time, which he 
published under the title of " A Dialogue with Trypho the Jew." 
He went back to Italy to continue his public teaching, and, in the 
year 163, — that is to say, twenty- three years after his first Apology, 
— he published the second, addressed to Marcus Aurelius. At last, 
four years after this fresh act of Christian fidelity, Justin, brought 
before the Prefect of Rome by the wicked machinations of Crescens, 
the Cynic philosopher, suffered martyrdom in 167. At that time 
Clement of Alexandria was but seventeen, and Irenoeus had only 
attained his forty-seventh year. 

Justin wrote much. Eusebius, 2 who gives the titles of ten of 
his works, and recommends them to be read to the men of his 
time, adds that they were worthy of attention even to the ancients, 
(<x7rou8?}? d^ioo kcu to?? iraXaiols,) and that Irenceus was fond of 
quoting them. Other writings of Justin which Eusebius has not 

1 The longest, which the old editions of Paris, 1636, and Cologne, 1686, print 
after the other. In the edition of London, 1722, it is placed first, [and in Otto's, 
Jena, 1847.] 2 Hist. Eccl., iv., 18. 

N 



194 



JUSTIN MAETYR. 



named were circulated also among a great number of the brethren, 
(nfkeicTTa he kol erepa rrapa 1 nroXXols fyeperai ahe\(j>ol<; rcov avrov 
nrovcov) Before he became a Christian, he had studied very 
ardently the different systems of philosophy propagated in his 
time, and was, above all, devoted to that of the Platonists, and 
after his conversion he continued to hold this human wisdom in 
higher esteem than became, in our opinion, a minister of the 
divine word. We know that he adhered all his life to the dress 
and manners of the philosophers. This was a means of recom- 
mending himself to the Greeks, and also of escaping the violence 
of a persecuting government. Yet, in his writings, he censures 
those Christians who concealed their faith to save their lives, and 
he himself did not conceal it when he was called to confess it 
before the Prefect of Eome. Belonging both to the East and 
West, he professed Christianity twenty years in Eome, after having 
been personally known among the most celebrated churches at 
that time in Africa, Europe, and Asia. He wrote against the 
unbelievers from among the pagans who persecuted the Church, 
against the Jews, who stirred them up, and against the heretics, 
who, with much boldness, made themselves conspicuous at Eome. 
He had, more than any other persons, the means of being well- 
informed, and consequently, he was eminently qualified to be 
listened to as representing the opinions of his age. 

Let us now admire how abundantly the three only writings of 
his which remain to us render testimony to the Scriptures, and 
especially to the Gospels. 

202. And, first, as to the Scriptures in general, he declares 
distinctly, under various forms of expression, their moral excellence 
and Divine inspiration. In his Dialogue with Trypho, 1 we may 
hear him give his own account of his happy transition from dark- 
ness to light. 

For a long time he had sought in vain for peace of mind and 
the truth of God in all the Greek philosophies, when at last he 
met, in a lonely spot, with a venerable old man, who discoursed 
with him of the sacred books, written, as he said, by men who 
were friends of God, who spoke by the Divine Spirit, (Oeucp irvev- 

1 Edit. Cologne, 1686, pp. 224, 225. Opera, ed. Otto, Jena, 1848; torn, i., 
pars, ii., p. 30. 



JUSTIN MARTYR 



195 



pan XaXijcravres,) and who had uttered predictions that were still 
in process of acomplishment. They alone, he added, had seen the 
truth, and declared it to men — not fearing any man, not seeking 
their own glory, and speaking only of things which they had seen 
and heard, having been filled with the Holy Spirit, (dyla) 7r\7jpco- 

Oevres irvev/jLaTi) And, moreover, they were most worthy 

of being believed on account of the miracles they performed. 
They glorified God the Father, the Creator of all things, and 
Christ His Son, whom He had sent. " But," added the a^ed 
Christian, " above all things pray that the gates of light may be 
opened to thee, (Ev-^ov Be croc 7rpb irdvTwv <£&)to9 dvoi^OrjvaL 
7rv\a<;,) for these things are not understood by all ; but only by 
men to whom God and His Christ grant the knowledge of them." 
Justin prayed, and the gates of light were opened to him. " Then 
I found," he says, "that this is the only certain and profitable 
philosophy, (TavTrjv fAovrjv evptcrtcov <fii\ocro(f)(av dacf>a\rj koX (jv/ju- 
(fropov.) It is thus, and by these means that I am a philosopher, 
(Ovtcds 8r) koX Bid ravra (f>i\6oro<po<; iyco.) And I wish that all 
aoreeirj£ in heart with me would not stand aloof from the words 
of the Saviour (jirj dfy'iGTacrQai tcov tov So)rf)po<; \6ycov,) for they 
have in them something that inspires awe ; they are sufficient to 
abash those who turn out of the right way, and the sweetest rest 
ensues to those who meditate on them, [kvam avals re fjBiaTr) ylverao 
Tot? ifc/iekeTcocnv avrovs.)" And, further, when Trypho assured 
him that he had been deceived : " I will prove to you," he said, 
" if you will listen to me, that we have not believed vain fables, 
nor un demonstrable words, (pv Be dvairoBeUTols \byocs,) but 
words full of the Divine Spirit, teeming with power, and exuberant 
with grace, (dX\d /xearoLS irvev/JLaros Oetov ical Bwd/iec (Bpvovai, 
koX re0rj\6(TL %apm.)" He then appeals distinctly to the internal 
excellence of the New Testament to establish our faith in its 
divinity. 

So again, in the same Dialogue, 1 Justin, speaking to the Jews 
of those passages of Scripture which prove the divinity of our 
Saviour, says, " Pay attention to those words, from the Holy 
Scriptures, I am about to mention, which do not require to be 



1 Page 274. Tom. L, pars, ii., p. 17S, cd. Otto. 



196 



JUSTIN MAETYE. 



explained, but only to be beard, (dirb rcov cuylcov ypaj>wv ovSe 
i%r)yr)dr)vaL Seofievcov, dXXd jxovov aKov(jQr\vai^ 

Further on, 1 he speaks of " the absurdity of those who think 
themselves able to produce anything better than the Scriptures, 
(aXX r)yeia0cu eavrov (BeXrLOV t?}? ypa(j)r)<; yevvrjaavra ehrelv!)" 

Elsewhere, 2 after having represented to the Gentiles how little 
confidence could be put in their philosophers, who all contradicted 
one another, he shews them, on the contrary, the great harmony 
of our sacred writers. "For having received," he says, "the 
knowledge which comes from God, they teach us it without strife, 
and without party-spirit. In fact," he adds, "it is not possible 
for men to know such great and divine things by nature, or by 
human thought, but by a gift at that time descending from on 
high on holy men of God, (pure yap cj^vaei ovre dvOpwirlvr) evvola 
ovtco jneyaXa /cat 6eta yivooo-fceiv avOpcoTrocs Svvarov, aXXa rfj 
avcoOev eVl rovs dyiov? av$pa$ TrjVLicavTa KareXOovorrj Scopea.)" 

We see, then, it is not to tradition, but to Divine grace, to the 
influence of the Holy Spirit received by each individual, that Justin 
appeals as to the interpretation of the Scriptures. " men ! " he 
exclaims in his Dialogue, " do you think that we should ever have 
understood these things in the Scriptures unless, by the will of 
Him who has been pleased to give them, we had received the grace 
of understanding them, (el firj 6eXrjfiarL rod OeXrjo-avTos avrd 
iXdfio/uLev %dpiv rod vorjaat.) " 3 

And in his Discourse to the Greeks : " Come and be instructed ; 
be as I am, for I also was as you are." 4 In the Greek these 
are the express words of Paul to the Galatians, (iv. 12.) "These 
are the things that elevated me — the inspiration of the doctrine, 
and the power of the word, ('EXOere, iraihevQ^Te yevecrOe a>? 
iyco on Kayo) rj/jLTjv &>9 v/jbels. Tavra fie etXe, to re -n}? TraiBeia? 
evOeov, Kol to tov Xoyov Svvarov.) " The Divine Word (6 6elo$ 
Aoyos) was that," he exclaimed, " which put to flight my evil pas- 
sions ; the doctrine was that which extinguished the fire of my soul !" 

203. In the second place, we have already seen 5 that the books 
of Justin only thirty-seven years after the death of John, attested 

1 Pp. 311, 312. Tom. i., pars, ii., p. 296, ed. Otto. 

2 Exhortation to the Gentiles, p. 9, ed. Cologne. Tom. ii., p. 38, ed. Otto. 

8 Opera, torn, i., pars, ii., p. 398, ed. Otto. 4 Tom. ii., p. 14. 6 Prop. 160. 



JUSTIN MARTYR. 



197 



solemnly in the name of the whole contemporaneous Church, and 
before the emperor and senate of Rome, the public use which 
the Christians throughout the world then made of the apostolic 
Scriptures in their assemblies for worship. 1 It was in the year 
140 that Justin had heard them read every Sunday at Rome, in 
Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor, and Greece. " The Memoirs of the 
apostles, or Gospels, are read/' he says, " every Sunday in the town 
and in the country; they are read with the books of the prophets ; 2 
and in every assembly, after they have been read, the president (o 
Trpoearcos) makes them the subject of his exhortations." 

These Memoirs of the Apostles, of which Justin Martyr speaks 
three times to the Emperor Antoninus in his Apology, could not 
be better described to a pagan stranger. We should do just the 
same in the present day if we addressed a defence of Christianity 
to the king of Siam or the emperor of Burmah. But Justin takes 
care to add twice that these memoirs were called Gospels, and that 
the aj^ostles were their authors. " At that time," 3 he says, " an 
angel of God, sent to the Virgin, announced the good news to her, 
saying, Behold, thou shalt conceive by the Holy Spirit, and shalt 
bear a son, and he shall be called Son of the Highest ; and thou 
shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their 
sins, as those have taught who have written 4 memoirs on all the 
things concerning our Saviour Jesus Christ, and whom we have 
believed." 5 And again, explaining further on to the same em- 
peror our holy supper, he says, " For the apostles, in the Memoirs 
composed by them and called Gospels, 6* have informed us that 
Jesus instituted that ordinance : Having taken bread and given 
thanks, he said, Do this in remembrance of me." 

In the same manner, in his Dialogues, Justin speaks fifteen 

1 First Apology, § 67, (Edit. Bened., Paris, 1742.) P. 98, ed. Cologne, 1686. 
Tom. i., pars, i., p. 158, ed. Otto. 

2 Kac to. dnopvi)pnp({ip.aTa toju dnoaToXwu, fj ra avyypdfj.fj.aTa tcoi> npotyrfTuu 
dvayiPU)crK€Tai p.f)(pts iy^copei. 

3 P. 75, B, cd. Cologne. Tom. i., pars, i., p. 86, ed. Otto. 

4 He combines, in fact, the narrative in Luke i. 31 and in Matt. i. 20, 21. 

6 '12? oi d-nnfivrffiovevo-avTes Tvdvra, rd TTCpi toO 2corr)p;y Jfpuiv 'irfcrov XpiaTOv 
ebi8a£av ois Ittio rev crape v. 

6 A KaXelrai EvayyeXia, that is, this is the common name of these Memoirs 
among the churches. 



198 



JUSTIN MARTYR. 



times of the Memoirs of the apostles, but takes care to repeat ten 
times that they were written by the apostles. He even goes so far 
as to make a more precise distinction between those Gospels which 
had apostles, properly so called, for their authors, as Matthew 
or John, and those which (such as the two Gospels of Luke and 
Mark) were composed by their companions. " In the Memoirs," 1 
he writes, " which I have said were composed by the apostles, and 
by those who accompanied them, it is written that the sweat fell 
from Him like drops of blood while He prayed and said, Let this 
cup pass from me." And the distinction which Justin makes is 
so much more worthy of attention because not one of the various 
spurious Gospels which were given to the world in the second 
century ever professed to be the work of " a companion of the 
apostles." 

Lastly, Trypho the Jew himself also knew our Gospels, for he 
said to Justin, " I know that your precepts, contained in what 
is called the Gospel? are so great and admirable that no one 
can observe them, for I have myself taken care to meet with 
them." 3 

We have entered into so many details in order to anticipate 
the difficulties which an eager negative criticism in Germany has 
attempted to raise against these testimonies of Justin. 

We shall say a few more words about it presently. 

204. In the third place, the books of Justin, though all three 
were addressed to men hostile to Christianity, present, compared 
with their size, an extraordinary abundance of quotations from 
the Gospels. We have counted fifty in his Apology, and more 
than seventy in his Dialogue. But the quotations are evidently 
almost all taken from our three synoptical Gospels, and report 
with many of the details, the facts of the life and death of the 
Saviour, and also the greater part of His moral teachings. This 
was his rational task in a defence of Christianity. It was neces- 
sary to shew to his opponents in all the facts relating to Christ 
the striking accomplishment of ancient prophecies, and in the in- 

1 'Ei/ to7s anofxv .... a (firjfxi viro toov a.7rocrr6Xcov avrov Kai t<ov imtvois 
TvapaKokov6r](TdvT(x)V avvTera^daL. 

2 'Yfx&v Se Kai ra iv t£> Xeyofieva evayyekico irapayyeXfiara. — P. 227, ed. Cologne. 
Tom. i., pars, ii., p. 38, ed. Otto. 3 'E/zot yap €fxe\r]aev ivrv\<eiv avrois. 



JUSTIN MAETYE. 



199 



comparable excellence of His teachings, the Divine character of a 
religion that had descended from on high. And this is what 
directed him in the choice of quotations ; he took them almost 
exclusively (as we have just said) from our three synoptic Gospels ; 
that of John (the spiritual Gospel, as it has been called) being too 
profound to be often cited in an Apology addressed to pagans or 
Jews. Notwithstanding this, many of Justin's expressions recall 
to us a reader of St John ; he even goes so far as to name this 
apostle and his Apocalypse. 1 " There is also among us/' he says 
to Trypho, "a man of the name of John, an apostle of Jesus 
Christ, who, in a revelation (apocalypse) made to him, has pro- 
phesied that those who have believed in our Christ will live a 
thousand years in Jerusalem.''' But Justin's principal citations 
are taken from Matthew and Luke ; they are made with freedom, 
and often in long passages. Being addressed to pagans and J ews, 
he was not obliged to a literal exactitude, provided he gave the 
true sense. In these 120 quotations you never find a single 
passage which has a legendary taint, or which could be referred 
to some apocryphal Gospel. They are all reminiscences of our 
Gospels ; he knows only what these know ; he reports only what 
these have reported — the infancy of Jesus according to the Gospels 
of Matthew and Luke, His descent from Abraham by Mary, 2 the 
sending of the angel Gabriel, the accomplishment of the prophecy 
of Isaiah, (vii. 14,) the vision that appeared to Joseph to prevent 
his putting away his wife, the prediction of Micah about Beth- 
lehem, the enrolment, the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, 
Cyrenius, the inn, the stable, the manger, the Magi, their offerings 
and adoration, the name of Saviour given to the holy infant, the 
flight into Egypt, the massacre of the infants, the prophecy of 
Jeremiah on the lamentation of Rachel, Archelaus, the return from 
Egypt, the thirty years of Jesus, all the history of John the Bap- 
tist, the Elias who was to come, the baptism of Jesus, His tempta- 
tion in the wilderness, His miracles of healing, the dancing of the 
daughter of Herodias, and the death of the prophet 

1 "E7rfira <ai nap rjp.1v uvrjp tls, g> ovopa 'I(dc'ivi>t)s . . . . kv 1 AnoKaXvyjrei 
yevopevrj alra> .... npo((pi']T€vo~e. 

2 'E£ <bj/, he says, fcardyei 17 Mapia to yevos. — Dial, a 100, 120. Tom. i, 
pars, ii., p. 340, ed. Otto. 



200 



JUSTIN MARTYR 



Justin also, in his Dialogue, relates with the same fulness the 
closing scenes of our Lord's ministry, — His triumphal entrance 
into Jerusalem accomplishing a prophecy, His visit to the temple, 
the institution of the Supper, the singing of a hymn, the three 
disciples taken apart, the prayers and agony of Gethsemane, the 
bloody sweat, the coming of Judas, the flight of the disciples, the 
silence of Jesus before Pilate, His being sent to Herod, the cross, 
the division of the garments by casting lots, the taunts,! the cry 
of Jesus, His last words, His burial on the evening of Friday, His 
resurrection on Sunday, 2 His shewing himself, His explanation of 
the Scriptures to the apostles, the calumnies of the Jews, the 
commission given to the apostles, 3 the ascension. 

Yet the most copious quotations of Justin have for their object 
the teachings of the Saviour. We find, for example, among them, 
almost the whole of the Sermon on the Mount, His calls to re- 
pentance, His directions to the seventy disciples, His words on the 
sign of Jonah, on the value of the soul, on marriage, on the tribute 
to Csesar, on the false teachers, on the resurrection, on chastity, 
on the love of enemies, on the future punishment of the wicked, 
on the scribes and Pharisees, on His own divinity. " It is written 
in the Gospel, All things have been delivered to me by the Father, 
and no one knoweth the Father but the Son, and no one knoweth 
the Son but the Father, and those to whom the Son shall reveal 
him." ^ 

In his larger Apology, 5 to shew the admirable morality of the 
Scriptures, he cites a good part of the Sermon on the Mount. 
" If ye love them that love you, what new thing do ye do ? for 
even fornicators do this. But I say unto you, Pray for your 
enemies, love them who persecute you, bless," &c. And on the 
duty of giving away our property, and doing nothing for one's 
own glory, he adds, " Christ says, Give to them that ask you, and 
turn not away. And as for you, treasure not up for yourselves 
treasure upon earth, where moth and rust corrupt. . . . And what 
shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own 
soul," &c. 

Besides these extended citations, we find many passages in 



1 And in the Apology, i. ? 38. 2 Ibid., i., 69. 3 Ibid., i., 50. 

4 Dial., p. 326. Tom. i., pars, ii., p. 340. B _ Page 23. 



JUSTIN MARTYR. 



201 



Justin which call to our recollection other books of the New Tes- 
tament. His part as an apologist does not require him to speak 
of the Acts of the Apostles, or of Paul's Epistles ; but his language 
often reminds us in passing that his mind had been nourished by 
them. Thus, in relation to the Epistle to the Colossians, (i. 15-17,) 
he calls Jesus Christ in four or five different places, the first-born 
of God, the first-born of all creatures, He who ivas before all 
creatures, 1 (rbv TrpwroroKov rcov irdvrwv 7roL7]fjLaT(ov, Trpwroroicov 
liev rod Qeov kol irpb iravTwv toov /ctht/jLcltcdv.) So it is with the 
Epistle to the Eomans : he shews that Abraham, being yet un- 
circumcised, was justified on account of his faith in which he 
believed God, (iv aKpojBvaria cov 8ia ryv iriariv r\v iirlaTeva-e tg3 
Sew, iSiKaLcaOrj,) 2 and thus it is that he cites his description of 
the moral misery of all men, Jews and Greeks : 3 " They are all 
gone out of the way ; they are all become unprofitable ; there is 
none that understandeth, not one ; their throat is an open sepul- 
chre," &c. 

Thus, again, with the Epistle to the Corinthians, (1 Cor. v. 7,) 
he says that Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us£ and 
complains of some saying that there is no resurrection of the 
dead. So it is with the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, (ii. 
3,) he speaks of Christ, who will come from heaven in glory, 
when also the man of apostasy, (o r% airoGTaaias dv6pwiro<;,) the 
man of sin, who utters strange things and blasphemies against the 
Most High, will manifest his audacious iniquity against us Chris- 
tians. 5 

And thus with the Epistle to the Hebrews, he says of Christ 
that He is the Son and Apostle of God, 6 and, in his Dialogue,? 
that He is according to the order of Melchisedec, King of Salem, 
and perpetual Priest of the Most High. 

It is thus with the Epistle to Titus, (iii. 4,) and the Epistle to 
the Romans, employing the remarkable expressions of the apostle, 
he speaks of the goodness and philanthropy of God, and the 

1 Apol., i., 46, ii., 6. Dial., pp. 310, 311, 326. Paris, 1636. Tom. L, pars, ii., 
p. 292, ed. Otto. 2 Dial., ch. xxiii. 8 Rom. iii. 11, 12. 

4 Dial., pp. 338, 339. Tom. i., pars, ii., p. 374, ed. Otto. 6 Dial., p. 338. 

6 Kat uyyfXos Se KaXelrai nai a-noaToXos. This name is nowhere given to him 
except in Heb. iii. i. 7 Dial., p. 341. Tom. i., pars, ii., p. 382, ed. Otto. 



202 



JUSTIN MAETYE. 



abundance of his riches, (f) jap ^prjarorr]^ feed rj (^CkavOpcoTria tov 
Beov.) 1 It is thus that, in his address and exhortation to the 
Gentiles, we find allusions to the Acts, and the Epistles to the 
Corinthians and to the Colossians. It is thus, in a word, that we 
observe many remarkable coincidences between Justin and Paul, 
on the Epistles to the Philippians and to Timothy, as also to the 
Galatians and Ephesians, in their common quotations from the 
Septuagint. In a word, we may say that, with the exception of 
the catholic epistles, and the Epistle to Philemon, there is no book 
of the first canon of which some trace may not be found in this 
ancient father. 

205. Still, to be able to appreciate duly all the value of his 
testimony, we must not forget that, of all his works, we possess 
only, complete and authentic, his two Apologies and his Dialogue 
— all three addressed, not to Christians, but to unbelievers. All 
his other numerous writings, composed for the members of the 
Church, are almost entirely lost. These would doubtless have 
furnished us with a testimony far more abundant and precise ; for 
he lived many years in the same city as the three greatest leaders 
of the contemporary heresies, and combated them. 2 

If we possessed the treatise he wrote against Marcion, of which 
Eusebius 3 tells us, or the lost portion of his book on the Monarchy 
of God, we should certainly have many more numerous quotations 
by him from the New Testament. Of this last-named work 
Eusebius tells us that the author proved his thesis by passages 
taken from our Scriptures, (i/c tcjv Trap' rj^cv ypacpcov,) but this 
portion has been lost. 

Two features especially distinguish his three apologetic treatises 
from those of his books which have not come down to our time. 

And, in the first place, these three treatises, and more especially 
the Dialogue, must needs quote the Old Testament much more fre- 
quently than the New. We may count, it is said, 314 quotations 
of the Old Testament against 120 of the New. This was quite 
natural ; for, in analogous circumstances, we should have acted 
just as he has done. If you are speaking to Jews, the Old Testa- 

1 Dial., p. 266. Tom. i., pars, ii., p. 154, ed. Otto. 

2 Cerdo, Marcion, and Valentine. 

a Cap. xxxvii., Hist. EccL, iv. 18, (pp. 140, 141, ed. Valesius, 1672.) 



JUSTIN MA&TYB. 



203 



ment alone is an authority ; and you quote the New merely to 
shew them that it fulfils Moses and the prophets. If you are 
speaking to pagans, still it is by the Old Testament that you 
prove to them the high antiquity of revelation, and its divine 
superiority above all the teachings of their philosophers regarding 
the origin, the duties, and the destiny of mankind This was" the 
method, a hundred years before Justin, of Philo and the Jewish 
school at Alexandria, in their controversies with the pagan world; 
as it was, after him, that of Theophilus of Antioch, Tatian, Ter- 
tullian, and Clement of Alexandria. 

A second feature which must characterise the quotations of 
Justin in his apologetic writings is, that they are made under 
designations less precise than would be employed in addressing 
Christian churches. We might expect that he would scarcely ever 
indicate the authors by their proper names ; that what Christians 
called Gospels he would call Memoirs of the apostles ; that he 
would cite them from memory ; that he would faithfully give the 
sense without believing himself always bound to the same expres- 
sions ; that he would condense, combine, or transpose certain 
sentences ; that he would often join two passages in one quota- 
tion ; and that if he repeated several times the same sentence from 
the Gospels, he would repeat it without feeling himself bound to 
quote it every time in the same terms. But, in the course of all 
these liberties, he would preserve the characteristics and the 
phraseology of the New Testament, without using any foreign 
element, any apocryphal recital, any trace of contemporary legends. 
This is what Justin has done. 

206. It is necessary to understand why we have entered into all 
these explanations respecting this father, which might at first 
sight seem superfluous. His testimony is of such great importance 
from its antiquity, from the extent and copiousness of his citations 
from the Gospels, and from the perfect authenticity of the books 
which transmit it to us, that it might be expected the modern 
opponents of our canonical scriptures would not neglect any 
means of weakening it. This is what they have done, especially 
in Germany. No one till these latter days has called in question 
the very clear and numerous testimonies which Justin gives to our 
synoptic Gospels ; but the negative criticism of modern Neologism, 



204 



JUSTIN MARTYR. 



by studying with the greatest care the hundred and twenty clear 
and full quotations made by this father, by collecting all the ex- 
pressions which differ ever so little from the text of Scripture, by 
finding fault with all the liberties of citation which Justin has 
allowed himself, and by exaggerating the difficulties, — this criti- 
cism, we say, has gone the length of asserting that he had not 
our four Gospels before him, but some other document : according 
to some, a certain primitive Gospel from which our four evan- 
gelists have drawn their fourfold narrative ; according to others, 
the apocryphal Gospel of the Hebrews, as it is called ; according 
to others, a harmony or combined narrative of our canonical 
Gospels ; and, lastly, according to Credner, a Gospel according to 
St Peter, which, under different forms, was circulated among the 
Jewish Christians. 

Great exertions have been made in Germany to uphold these 
strange hypotheses, and great exertions to put them down ; 1 and 
thus the study of Justin has been completed with great exactness. 
We shall not enlarge further in this controversy. 2 There are in 
the path of the defenders of the Holy Word serious objections 
which must be met at all times ; but there are others which have 
only a special place and time, and do not need to be refuted with 
fulness except in their own time and place. The objections we 
have just noticed are, as we think, of this class. They have made a 
noise, but they have also done too much violence to historical state- 
ments to be repeated. How can it be maintained that Justin em- 
ployed apocryphal Gospels at the very time when, close by his 
side, in the same city of Eome, the heretic Valentine made use 
only of our four evangelists and a complete canon, (integro instru- 
mento,) as Tertullian 3 affirms ? How — when, at the very time, he 
declared to the emperor that the Gospels, or Memoirs of the 
apostles, — memoirs without doubt known and fixed, — were read 
every Sunday in all the churches of the empire? How — when 

1 See and compare Semisch's Denkwiirdigkeiten Justins, (Hamburg, 1848;) 
Credner's Beitrage, i., 92-267, (Halle, 1832 ;) Schwegler Nachapostolische Zeitalter, 
i., 217-231. 

2 Semisch has treated it with ability, p. 16-33. We may also find it explained 
and discussed in Mr Westcott's learned work on the canon, entitled, "A General Sur- 
vey of the History of the Canon of the New Testament; Cambridge, 1855." 

3 De Praescript. Haereticor., cap. xxxviii. 



JUSTIN MARTYR. 



205 



they were everywhere so known, that Trypho the Jew, when Justin 
named them to him, knew them, and said he had read them ? How 
— at a time when Irenseus, then at Lyons in the prime of life, 
constantly spoke of the quadriform Gospel, (rerpd/jLopcjiov evay- 
yeXiov,) as a whole, unique of its kind, and everywhere acknow- 
ledged with incomparable constancy, (tanta est circa evangelium 
haec firmitas neque autem plura numero quam haec sunt, neque 
rursus pauciora capit esse evangelia ?) 1 How — when we recol- 
lect that Irenseus, on betaking himself to Lyons, had passed 
through Eome during Justin's long sojourn there, and that he 
returned thither about the year 177, ten years only after the mar- 
tyrdom of that father, in order to visit Bishop Eleutherus ? How, 
again, can it be supposed that Justin made use, for his two 
Apologies, of Gospels which were not the same ? How can it be 
supposed that he and Ireneeus used different Gospels ? How can 
we imagine that the immediate disciples of Justin and all the 
Church spoke of a collection different from his in precisely the 
same .terms \ How can it be pretended that, in so short a time, 
an immense revolution took place in the Christian world unper- 
ceived, and was effected without leaving the slightest trace ? How 
can we suppose that all the churches consented, without any noise, 
at this epoch to change their sacred books all over the world, so 
that those which were read publicly every Sunday in the year 140 
were not the same in 167, when Justin died, though they were 
still designated by the same expressions ? Certainly nothing can 
more deplorably betray the forlorn condition of a system, than the 
attempt to prop it up by such impossible suppositions. 



Section Second. 

objections against the testimony of justin martyr. 

207. We shall say only a very few words on the three principal 
objections alleged by our opponents when they maintain that 
Justin in his 120 quotations had before him different Gospels 

1 Contra Haeres., lib. iii., cap. ii. The whole passage shews, says Olshauscn, 
(Aechtheit cL 4 can. Evang., p. 272,) that Irenreus absolutely could not have known 
a time when there was not a collection of the Gospels. 



206 



OBJECTIONS. 



from our own. 1 In the first place, they say, though Justin once 2 
names the apostle John as author of the Apocalypse, he never desig- 
nates Matthew, Mark, or Luke by their proper names, even when 
he quotes at length their own words, such as we read in their 
respective Gospels. But we reply, that such a mention of their 
names would have been out of place in such a work ; none of the 
other apologists who came after him ever did it ; neither Tatian, 
the disciple of Justin, nor Athenagoras, nor even Tertullian in his 
" Apologeticus" who names them so often in his other writings, 
nor Theophilus of Antioch in his books to "Autolycus/' nor 
Clement of Alexandria in his " Exhortation to the Gentiles," nor 
Cyprian in his treatise "Ad Demetrianum," nor Origen in his 
books against Celsus, nor Lactantius, nor Arnobius, nor even 
Eusebius in his Evangelica Praeparatio. Theophilus and Clement, 
like Justin, have named only St John, and like him but once. 
Lactantius goes to the length of blaming Cyprian for having 
quoted Scripture in a controversy with a pagan. 3 

In the second place, they say, see the extreme liberty with 
which Justin makes his quotations from the Gospels ; he quotes 
them from memory; often if he gives the sense it is in other 
phrases, or by abridging and combining them. But the reply to 
this is as simple as it is decisive ; and it is sufficient in order to 
give it to study this author more closely. This is what Semisch 
and Credner have done in comparing with the citations from the 
New Testament by Justin, those which the same father has taken 
from Moses and the prophets. But it is absolutely the same liberty 
whether in the Apology or in the Dialogue with Trypho. You 
may read in these authors more than sixty passages where you will 
see Justin treat the Old Testament in the same manner as he has 
done the New — giving passages from memory, paraphrasing them 
in order to make them clearer, transposing or combining them, 
and paying more attention to the sense than to the words. In 
like manner, when he cites them on different occasions, it is with 

1 Semisch has examined these strange hypotheses with ability, in his Denkwur- 
digkeiten Justins, (Hamb., 1848.) The whole controversy has been handled with 
much care in the learned work of Mr Westcott on the Canon of the New Testa- 
ment. He has made use, in a very luminous manner, of the labours of German 
writers, (pp. 112-216.) 

2 In his Dialogue, p. 308. Tom. i., pars, ii., p. 282, ed. Otto. 8 Instit., v., 4. 



OBJECTIONS. 



207 



remarkable verbal alterations in order to apply them with more 
force to his object. If, then, he thus cites Moses and the prophets, 
so well known to the Jewish people, why should he cite otherwise 
the apostles and evangelists ? 

Lastly, a third objection is founded on the following words, 
which Justin cites as if uttered by Jesus Christ, and which are 
not found in our gospels : — " Our Lord," he writes in the 47th 
chapter of his Dialogue with Trypho, <: has said, In what things 
I convict you, in them I luill also judge you ; " 1 and in chap. 35, 
w Christ has said, there shall be schisms and heresies." We reply 
(1.) that neither of these sentences can be found in any of the 
apocryphal Gospels ; (2.) that Justin says not a word here of 
having read them in the Memoirs of the apostles ; (3.) we need 
not be astonished if this father, writing a very few years after 
John's death, while there remained unwritten remembrances of 
the words of Christ, recited traditionally this sentence of the Lord, 
as Paul himself recited that which we read in the 20th chapter of 
the Acts, and which is not to be found in the Gospels, " Eemember 
the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, It is more blessed to 
give than to receive" 

208. In a word, it is beyond all doubt that in the year 140 of 
the Christian era, Justin, in his Apology, and a few years after in 
his Dialogue, cites with extreme copiousness our synoptic Gospels, 
declaring them to be written by apostles of Christ, and com- 
panions of the apostles ; and informing the Roman emperor that 
every Sunday all the Christians throughout the world read them 
publicly with the writings of the Old Testament in their public 
assemblies, before offering their prayers to God, celebrating the 
supper, and receiving the alms of the faithful. 

1 'Ei> cu? av v/xaj Karakafico iv tovtois xai K.piva>. Some persons have seen in 
this expression a paraphrase of those words of our Lord, " Where the carcase is, 
there will the eagles be gathered together." Three others have been adduced 
which are disputable. See Kirchhofer, Quellensanimlung, &c, p. 104. 



208 



OTHER HISTORICAL MONUMENTS OF THE CANON. 



Section Third. 

other historical monuments of the canon in the first 
half of the second century. 

209. Justin, moreover, is not the sole witness of this epoch. 
Though he is the only one of the fathers of whom any writings 
have come down to us entire and authentic, yet we find in Eusebius 
many traces of other writers of the same period who, in passing, 
bear witness to the canon, and who, bringing us back for a mo- 
ment to the banks of that stream to whose source we are re- 
mounting, allow us to see it again still majestic, and thus to ap- 
preciate by a glance the distinguished place the sacred collection 
of the Scriptures already held in the usages of the people of God. 

Thus, for example, in his third book, chap. 37, Eusebius tells us 
that, under the reign of Trajan, at the beginning of the second 
century, in the remote days of the minister and martyr Ignatius, 
and when that Quadratus flourished in the Church " who had re- 
ceived miraculous charisms with the daughters of Philip," " a great 
number of the disciples rendered themselves celebrated among the 
first successors of the apostles by going forth to spread through 
the whole earth the salutary seeds of the kingdom of heaven." 
" The majority of them," he adds, " having had, by the divine Word, 
(7T/oo? tov 0€lov \6yov,) the soul penetrated with an ardent love of 
the (true) philosophy, (acpoBporepw (fiikoaocjiLas epcort rrjv -yjrv^rjv 
7t\7)tt6/jl€vol,) followed the exhortation of the Lord by distributing 
their goods to the poor; then, abandoning their country and 
setting out on their travels, they fulfilled the work of evangelists 
among those who had never heard the word of faith, because they 
were ambitious to announce Christ, and to transmit the scripture 
of the divine Gospels, (teal ttjv tcov Oeiwv evayyeXlcov Trapahihovcu 
typacfyrjv.) " 

Thus you see these holy men of God, at the beginning of the 
second century, successors and imitators of the apostles, at the 
period when John was himself bearing the testimony of Jesus 
Christ in the province of Asia, at Ephesus, and when the charisms 
of the Spirit still accompanied the preaching of the gospel, you 
see them travelling with the scriptures of the divine Gospels in 



PANTLENUS. 



209 



their hands, carrying them into barbarous countries, (eVl fe'yot? 
real tottols.) You see them not only penetrated in their own 
souls by the divine Word, as Eusebius says, but leaving it behind 
them in writing, and " transmitting n it to these distant popula- 
tions. So also Eusebius 1 informs us that Pantsenus, when he 
penetrated into India towards the end of the second century, 
found that the Gospel of Matthew had preceded his arrival almost 
a hundred years, having been left written in Hebrew letters 
(Efipalcov ypd/xfiacri) by Bartholomew, one of the twelve, and 
had been the means of bringing a certain number of men there to 
the knowledge of Jesus Christ. 

By this recital of Eusebius we are again brought to the margin 
of the Scriptures, and ascend nearly to the point where its bene- 
ficent and pure current first escaped from the apostolic lake, to 
receive yet some additional streams, and soon to proceed, com- 
plete and majestic, to carry its living waters to all the nations of 
the earth. 

It is sufficiently evident that Eusebius here speaks of definite 
and acknowledged Gospels which had not been changed on their 
way ; in a Word, of the Gospels which from his days have been 
reverenced by the whole Christian world. 

210. But if by various accidents only so small a number of the 
monuments of the fathers of the second century remain to us, the 
providence of God has provided others still more important, and, 
perhaps, more indisputable. They have been left to us by the 
most violent enemies of these same fathers. Their testimony will 
speak to us in stronger accents, since it was involuntary, and will 
render service to the gospel in the present day in spite of all the 
hatred that these men bore to it. They little suspected, these un- 
believers of the two first centuries, that even their attacks would 
serve in the most remote ages to confound those who resembled 
them. In almost all their features they were like the men of the 
nineteenth century, whose systems they now overturn, and it is by 
them that the holy convictions of the primitive Church on the 
subject of the canon are most strongly attested to us against all 
the negations of modern unbelief. 

These opponents in the age of Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus 

i Hist. Eccl., v., 10. 




210 



TESTIMONY OF ENEMIES. 



Pius, were of two sorts : the one, unbelievers among Jews and 
pagans, calumniated the Church from without ; the others, heretics 
among the Ebionites and Gnostics, harassed it within by doc- 
trinal errors in the name of what they called with self-laudation 
Gnosis or Science, — " Science falsely so called," (yfrevScovv/jbov 
ryvcoaecos,) said the apostle Paul. 1 

But it must be remarked that, as ordinarily happens, the enemy 
excited this double war of unbelievers and heretics at the time of 
the greatest progress of the gospel. It was also in making this 
attack, so audacious and so violent, that these men left behind 
them, in the literature of their age, such precious monuments of 
the canon. Their distant attempts have again led us to the banks 
of the river, though they were occupied only in troubling the 
waters with their feet, and rendering them turbid ; but these very 
attempts, contrary to their expectations, have turned to the honour 
of the Scriptures. Not only will they serve to establish their 
course in the second century, but we shall see all the contemporary 
churches reverently stationed on the same banks, to guard the 
stream, and to draw with eagerness the waters that spring up to 
everlasting life. 

1 1 Tim. vi. 20. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



the testimony of pagan unbelievers in the second century. 

Section First, 
their writings. 

211. The first enemies of Christianity, in order to find subjects of 
accusation, applied themselves to the study of the Scriptures, 
boasting that they should thus "destroy it with its own weapons f 
and by this attempt they have supplied us, even in their most 
violent writings, with a splendid acknowledgment of our collection, 
and of the authority, already established, which it enjoyed in their 
time throughout all the churches. " All these things, which we 
object to you," said the Jew of Celsus, 6 Kekaov, (a Jewish 
opponent whom Celsus brings forward as speaker in his famous 
book against Christianity,) 1 — " all these things we take from your 
own Scriptures, (ravra fiev ovv i/c to*v v/jLerepwv o-vyypafidTcov ;) 
and, fortified by these quotations, we have no need of any witnesses 
against you but yourselves ; for you will thus fall into your own 
snare, (avrol yap eavrols irepiTrliTTeTe?)" 

The writings of these ancient adversaries exist no longer ; but 
many of the works composed to refute them having come down 
to us furnish an unanswerable testimony; and, under this form, we 
may say that the ancient defenders of the gospel have, perhaps, 
been of more service to it by their quotations than by their argu- 
ments. In this way almost all the objections of Celsus are repro- 

1 His Aoyos 'aAt;^?. The book Las been lost, but copious citations are to be 
found in Origcn's " Refutation of Celsus." 



212 



TESTIMONY OF PAGAN UNBELIEVEES. 



duced by Origen ; many of those of Amelius by Eusebius ; and of 
those of Porphyry by Jerome and Chrysostom. 

As Amelius and Porphyry belong rather to the third century, 
we shall speak here only of Celsus, who flourished in the first half 
of the second century, under the reign of Hadrian — that is to say, 
from 117 to 138. 

Section Second, 
testimony of celsus. 

212. Celsus (or rather Kelsos) was an Epicurean philosopher, 
full of burning hatred against the Christians. He knew how to 
wield with much vigour and ability all the weapons of argument 
and ridicule to disparage their leader, their doctrine, and their 
Scriptures. Origen, in his eight books against Celsus, 1 has made 
us acquainted with his writings without informing us of his exact 
age, or the place of his residence. "We only know that he was 
more ancient than the famous unbeliever, Lucian of Samosata, 
who lived under the Antonines, and who dedicated to him one of 
his dialogues. Kirchhofer, 2 depending on a passage in which 
Celsus seems to him to speak of Marcion,3 would place him later 
in the second century than we have done ; but it is a mere con- 
jecture on his part. Marcion is not named in the passage. 

213. The testimony which Celsus bears to the canon of the 
Gospels is of very great weight from its remote age. Chrysostom, 
fifteen hundred years ago, directed the attention of the men of his 
times to the homage paid by this unbeliever to our sacred books. 
"Admire," he says, in his sixth homily on the First Epistle to 
the Corinthians, "how early the gospel has been propagated in 
all parts of the habitable globe; for Celsus, and after him, 
Porphyry, who have spoken so much against us, are sufficient 
witnesses of the antiquity of our sacred books, (Uavol .... rrjv 
ap^aLorrjra /lapTVprjo-at, Tot? /3fc/3A,/o£9.)" 

Thus it came to pass that this opponent, at the beginning of 

1 The best edition is Spencer's; Cambridge, 1658; 4to. "We generally quote 
from the Benedictine edition of Origen's works; 4 vols, folio, 1733-1759. 

2 Quellensammlung, &c, p. 331. 

3 Origen against Celsus, book ii., ch. xxvii., (Opp., torn, i.) 



CELSUS. 



213 



the second century, like Voltaire and the English Deists in the 
eighteenth, through his hatred of the Scriptures, set himself to 
study in a certain manner their character and contents. The 
way in which he has spoken of our four Gospels, and of no other, 
evidently shews, Kirchhofer 1 observes, that he not only knew them 
under this title, but attributed them to the disciples of Jesus, and 
that, in his time, they were used universally in the Christian 
churches. He never makes an objection to their authenticity; 
and we may be sure that, however little it would have been 
possible to call it in question in his time, had there been the 
slightest ground for so doing, such a man would not have failed 
to seize with both hands so powerful a weapon. But it never 
entered his thoughts. On the contrary, as we have said, he boasts 
of quoting them " to beat the Christians with their own weapons." 
In a word, the whole group of fragments preserved by Origen 
renders it in the highest degree probable that Celsus had read the 
collection of our four Gospels, and even that he had read no others. 
Thus not only Christians, but pagans themselves attest the uni- 
versal dissemination of the sacred collection of the Gospels in the 
second century. 

214. Celsus, in order to depreciate the character of Jesus, brings 
forward with great copiousness almost all the facts of His life, and 
the greater number of His words. The mere collection of these 
passages in Kirchhofer's work fills twenty-three pages ; and you 
may recognise there, by turns and exclusively, each of our four 
evangelists, as well as many passages of Paul's epistles. And 
when he has cited all these facts of the birth, the life, the 
miracles, the discourses, the sufferings, the death, and resurrection 
of our Lord, he declares that he had taken them from the writings 
of the disciples of Jesus, (Vot? vtto t&v /jLaOrjTcov rov 'Irjcrov ypa- 
</>etcrtzA) 2 " I have taken them," he says elsewhere, " from your 
own writings, {Ik tcov v/ierepcov avyy pa/xfxdrcov tcad^ a kcli v/iels 
avyyeypdcfxiTe.)" 3 

For example, he represents Jesus as being, according to our 
Scriptures, the pretended son of a virgin, announced by angels, 
adored by the Magi, flying into Egypt, baptized by John, behold- 

1 Quellensammlung, &c, pp. 330, 333, 349. 

» Origen, Contra Celsum, ii., 71. 3 II., 49, 74. 



214 



TESTIMONY OF PAGAN UNBELIEVEES. 



ing a clove descend at His baptism, &c, &c. He reproaches Him 
with having said, " It is easier for a camel to pass through the 
eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of 
God with having said, "Behold the lilies of the field " " behold 
the fowls of the air, they toil not, they spin not;" with having 
said, " If any one say to you, Christ is here, or he is there, believe 
him not ; " with having said, " Many will say to me in that day, 
Lord, Lord, we have cast out demons in thy name, and in thy 
name have done wonderful works," &c. ; " but I shall say unto 
them, Depart from me, ye that work iniquity." "0 Light, 
Truth," he exclaims, " hear Himself, — your own writings attest it, 
— hear Him with His own voice, informing us that others, although 
wicked, will perform the same miracles ! " 

But more than this, Celsus, in order to disparage our Gospels 
and set them in contradiction to one another, evidently points out 
those of Matthew and Luke as opposed to one another in their 
genealogies ; 1 and elsewhere evidently alludes to the Gospel of 
John, describing how Christ shewed His disciples the scars in His 
hands and in His feet, 2 — speaking of the blood that flowed from 
His side, 3 of the earthquake and the darkness, reproaching Chris- 
tians with calling Jesus the Son and Word of God, (iv rS Xeyew 
tov viov tov ©eov ewai avTokoyov,) and Christ with saying to His 
disciples, 4 " With desire I have desired to eat this passover with 
you ;" and again, " If ye are persecuted in one city, flee you to 
another." " Wherefore didst thou flee hither and thither with thy 
disciples V said the Jew of Celsus to Jesus. " Why, since a good 
general is never betrayed by his soldiers, nor even a brigand by 
the wretches of whom he is the chief — why did not Jesus gain 
from His disciples the same attachment ?" 5 "Why did Jesus so 
bewail Himself in those words, ' My Father, if it be possible, let 
this cup pass from me"^ " Why did He suffer so much from 
thirst, which often men of no account endure ? " 7 " Why, when 
they offered Him gall and vinegar, did He swallow it with 
avidity?" "Why was He so ready to threaten and exclaim, 
' Woe to you ! — I say unto you V" " Why, Jesus, hadst thou 

i II., 32. 2 II, 55. 3 II., 36-59. 4 I., 70. 

5 II., 12. 6 II., 24. r it., 37. 



CELSUS. 



215 



need in thy infancy of being warned by an angel, and carried into 
Egypt for fear of being killed ? " 

Lastly, Celsus marks equally all the four evangelists, when lie 
opposes those who make one angel appear at the sepulchre (as 
Mark and Matthew) to those who (as Luke and John) make two 
appear at it, (yiro tlv&v ixev Suo, vtto tivcov Be eh.) 1 He even 
reproaches the Christians with making use of four ; " for some of 
you believers," he says, " like drunken men who strike themselves 
with their own hands, have out of the first writing (or scripture) 
recarved and remodelled the Gospel three times, four times, and 
many times, that they may be able to refute arguments by denials. 2 

215. But yet Celsus has not confined his accusations to our four 
Gospels. He has extended them even to Paul's epistles. He has 
spoken, for example, of the prophecies which, in the Second Epistle 
to the Thessalonians and in the first to Timothy, refer to the great 
apostasy of the last days. " I think," says Origen, " that in 
these passages he has ill understood the apostolic language," (on 
1 Tim. iv. 2.) 

Moreover, he reproaches Christians with injuring one another, 
while they are heard saying, " The world is crucified to me, and I 
unto the world," (Gal. vi. 14.) "Celsus," says Origen,3 " cannot 
bring forward these words but as a remembrance from Paul's 
epistles, (tovto yap [xovov curb rod TlaiiXov eoi/ce fie/jLvrj/jioveo- 
Kevai 6 KeXcros.)" " But I pass," Origen says elsewhere, 4 " to 
another accusation of Celsus, where, misunderstanding the Scrip- 
tures, he reproaches us with saying that what is wisdom among 
men is folly before God ; while Paul has simply said, (1 Cor. iii. 
19,) 'The luisdom of this world is folly before God!" And in 
another place, making an allusion to 1 Cor. viii. 11, he reproaches 
Christians for their conduct in reference to meats offered to idols. 
" Hear," says Origen,^ " these words of Celsus. See his dilemma : 
— ' If these idols are nothing, what is there so terrible (rl Beivov) 
in taking part at our public festivals ? And if there are really 
certain demons, then they are evidently demons of God, to whom 

1 V., 56. 

2 II., 27, M€T(l)((ipuTT€lU CK TTjS 1Tp(X>TT]<i ypil r p>jS TO E'YAITE'AION TplX?} 

Kai tct/ki^T; ko\ ttoXXu^) Kai /xern7rXaTrfii', iv (\oiev npus rois eAey^otf 
apvt-loOai. 3 V., 04. 1 VI., ]2. 5 VIII., U. 



216 



TESTIMONY OF PAGAN UNBELIEVEES. 



you ought to give faith aud homage according to the laws, and 
whom you ought to invoke to render them propitious/ " " It will 
be useful," Origin adds, " to explain here the whole of the passage 
in Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians on things sacrificed to 
idols/' 

Section Thied. 
foece of this testimony. 

216. Let us stop here to consider carefully the whole force of 
the testimony rendered so near the death of St John to the canon 
of our sacred books. Observe, then, how this Voltaire of the 
second century confutes, without intending it, the men who at- 
tempt in the nineteenth to raise doubts against the existence of 
the canon in the second, Observe how he shews these doubts to 
be absurd, since he employs against the Christians their own 
weapons — these " Scriptures " — " Scriptures composed/' he affirms, 
"by the disciples of Jesus" — those which all the world received 
as such, and on which the whole edifice of their faith was built — 
those of which no one, either among friends or foes, ever called in 
doubt the apostolic authenticity — those which were read every 
Sunday in all the churches throughout the world. Let any one 
only read the scriptural quotations of Celsus, all taken only from 
Origen's " Kefutation/' He will be struck with the irresistible 
power of this involuntary testimony, and tempted to say in his 
turn to these enemies of the Christians, (ovSevos aWov fidprvpo? 
^p^ojubev,) " We need no witness against you, Celsus, but your- 
self \" And we have no need of other witnesses against your unbe- 
lieving brethren of the nineteenth century than yourself at the 
beginning of the second ! 

These quotations of Celsus, which might be easily multiplied, 
will suffice, 1 then, to prove abundantly the universal reception 
and authority of our sacred books in the first years of the second 
century, and, of course, their promulgation at a much earlier 
period ; for Celsus everywhere assumes this anteriority. Our sacred 
books are represented to be as old as the Christian Church. 

1 See Celsus himself in the collection of the Benedictines, p. 71, note 1. 



CELSUS. 



217 



Celsus indicates not the slightest suspicion that it could be other- 
wise. The idea of calling in question their authority in the 
Christian Church, and their universally acknowledged authenticity, 
does not occur to his thoughts, for it could not then have entered 
any one's mind ; and his hatred has recourse to very different accu- 
sations. Here are your Scriptures, on the contrary, he said in 
other words, you cannot deny them ; the very disciples of your 
Master are their writers ; but if I admit with you their apostolic 
authenticity, I shall proceed to point out to you their contradic- 
tions, their immoral sentiments, their notions borrowed from 
Plato, and their impossibilities. We see, then, that Celsus stoutly 
repudiates the whole modern system of attack by unbelievers 
against our canon : he shews them that it is destitute of all 
historic value, and that they must change it. And mark well, 
it would have been a more potent weapon for Celsus than all 
others against Christianity in its infancy and in its future, 
could he have raised the slightest doubt of the authenticity of our 
books ; it would have overturned our religion from its foundation. 
But this weapon could not by any possibility be then used. The 
idea of employing it never occurred to Porphyry, to Amelius, or 
to Julian. And yet this thought of calling in question the 
authenticity of our sacred books, and the agreement of all the 
churches in the world to receive them, would have offered itself so 
much better to the hatred of Celsus, than if the twenty-two 
homologoumena were everywhere and always uncontroverted from 
the apostolic times. This was not the case with the five short 
late epistles, for the question respecting these books was not 
entirely decided, and the Christian teachers still studied it in a 
spirit of mutual respect, forbearance and peace. It does not 
signify. You find in no part of the Church a trace of doubt as to 
the first canon — its origin — its authority — the universal confidence 
it obtained — the continual use made of it by the churches in all 
their assemblies for worship. Certainly, then, it must be affirmed, 
if we had only the True Discourse (40705 'AXrjdfc) of Celsus, or, 
rather, the fragments preserved by Origen, we should still be 
obliged to conclude from it that, at the beginning of the second 
century, the Christians had long been in possession of a sacred 



2J8 



TESTIMONY OF PAGAN UNBELIEVERS. 



collection of books, attributed to the apostles by their enemies 
themselves, and already made in all their churches the standard of 
their faith and the rule of their life. 

We now pass on to the heretics — their testimony will be still 
more explicit ; and this proof will be so ample that it will appear 
to surpass even that of the fathers, and that furnished by the 
enemies of the Church, for we shall listen to witnesses more 
ancient than either Justin Martyr or Celsus. 



CHAPTER IX 



THE TESTIMONY OF HERETICS IN THE FIEST HALF OF THE SECOND 

CENTUEY. 

Section First, 
the character of this testimony 

217- The heretics, whose unanimous voice is heard at this epoch, 
are not a small number, as was the case with the contemporary 
fathers. They are a host — a cloud of witnesses. Ancient authors 
have reckoned in those remote times as many as thirty-two heretical 
sects, differing very much in their dogmas, but very unanimous, 
as we shall see, in attesting for us the existence of the canon, and 
its authority in all the churches. And so great is the power of 
this proof, that in our day we have seen many German defenders 
of the canon 1 who have placed the main strength of their apology 
in it. This testimony is involuntary, since we owe it, like that of 
Celsus, to the most dangerous enemies of primitive Christianity. 
We must here admire how Providence makes use of such men, 
after ] 700 years, in reducing to powder the negations of modern 
criticism. Behold these ancient enemies, the cause of so much 
trouble to the Church in its earlier days, now joining their voice 
to that of the fathers of the second century, to establish, against 
the rationalists of the nineteenth, the authenticity of our sacred 
books, and the divine authority attributed to them by all the 
Christian Churches throughout the world ! " It is a fact worthy 
of our most serious consideration/' says Hug, " that the depositions 

1 See their most recent introductions to the study of the New Testament, be- 
ginning with that of Hug, (Hug's Einleitung, prop, i., p. 88.) 



220 



TESTIMONY OF HEEETICS. 



of heretics, so accidentally preserved, attest not only the existence 
of the New Testament in the second century, but its anterior 
origin ; for these depositions relate not merely to their own times ; 
they mount much higher up, and attest that the apostles Peter, 
John, and Paul, were authors of our sacred writings/' To have 
all the force which belongs to it, this proof would require a 
greater development of quotations than we could conveniently 
present here. The numerous writings of all these heretics have 
perished, like those of the unbelieving pagans of the same period ; 
but we find most copious citations from them in the refutations 
written by Irenseus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, 
Hippolytus, and some others. 

218. To behold all these heresies springing up in a time so 
close to the days of the apostles need not astonish or perplex our 
faith. Heresies germinate and flourish only in times of awakening 
and life. The whole history of God's people shews us that these 
departures from the truth have been more frequent when the 
churches have been most fervent and pure. St Paul goes so far 
as to say that they have their use in the government of God. 
" For there must be also heresies among you," he tells us, 
(1 Cor. xi. 19.) And he takes care to instruct the church of 
Corinth that God knows how to make use of this evil for the 
good of His people ; because the very heresies which harass serve 
also to purify them. "Their word will eat as doth a canker," 
(2 Tim. ii. 17, 18,) he has said; but frequently they also perform 
in a church a similar office to that of leeches on a sick body — they 
draw off what ought not to remain in the system. Hence it 
results, the apostle says, " that those that are approved are made 
manifest among believers;" and they prove the elect. We are not, 
then, to be astonished at the great number of heretics in the 
second century, or even in the first. The gospel never spread 
itself over the world with so much power as in the days of Trajan 
and Hadrian, (from 98 to 138 ;) but never did such a multitude 
of monstrous sects invade the churches of God. 

219. Irenseus, in his great work, has described in detail all 
those of his time; and the celebrated Hippolytus, thirty years 
after him, has passed them under review in his Refutation. He 
enumerates as many as thirty-two ; four belonging to the Ophites, 



TESTIMONY OF HEEETICS. 



221 



who already, in the time of John, mixed their own prophecies 
with the Kevelation ; eleven of different Gnostic sects, given np in 
various ways to the worthless deceptions of a philosophy which 
they eulogised as Gnosis or Science; 1 twelve others belonging 
to the Ebionites, Judaising sects, who repudiated the doctrines 
of grace, and the divinity of Jesus Christ ; others made up of 
Ebionism and Gnosticism ; and, lastly, five others, who were in 
error chiefly on points of discipline, and who, at least, were 
orthodox as to the doctrine of God and His Christ. 

220. But all these sects have borne a striking testimony to the 
canon of Scripture, chiefly in the following particulars : — 

(1.) The majority of them, with all their errors, and the rashness 
of their modes of interpretation, acknowledged the authority of our 
sacred books. This was, for example, the case with the powerful 
host of the Yalentinians, who formed alone six sects of Gnostics. 
This was the case also with the disciples of Carpocrates, and with 
those of Theodotus, who belonged rather to the Ebionite sects. 
" Valentine appears to have made use of a complete canon," said 
Tertullian, 2 (Valentinas integro instrumento uti videtur;) and 
Irenseus satisfies himself with saying of this sect, that " it had a 
preference for the writings of John. They attempt," he adds, " to 
justify their errors by apostolic and evangelic citations, though 
they give perverted interpretations, and are unscrupulous in their 
exegesis, (TraparpeTrovres to.? ip/Awveias, kcu pahiovpryovvres ra? 

(2.) In the second place, even those heretics who allow them- 
selves to reject part of the canon, render a remarkable testimony 
to it by the fact, that their respective sects, carried away in 
opposite directions, contradict one another. The sacred books 
which some reject are exactly those that others prefer. The 
Ebionites, considering Paul as an apostate from Judaism, rejected 
his writings, and those of Luke, his fellow-labourer; while, on 
the contrary, many of the antijudaising Gnostics, Marcion 
especially, and all the Marcionites, rejected Matthew, Mark, 
Peter, and John, holding them for apostles of the circumcision. 
In this manner, far from shaking our confidence in the canon, 



1 1 Tim. vi. 20. 



De Pracsicript. Haeretic, cap. ii. 



222 



TESTIMONY OF HERETICS. 



these conflicting testimonies, taken as a whole, are equivalent to 
confirmatory depositions. 

(3.) Lastly, it must be, above all, carefully observed, that of all 
the heretics of the second century, even among the worst, there is 
not one who disowns the authenticity of the books of the canon, 
even of the books which they did not receive. The controversy 
between them and the Church never turned on the apostolicity of 
the twenty-two homologoumena, nor on the credit they had ob- 
tained at that time in the universal Church. In rejecting a cer- 
tain number they only rejected the doctrine, and you never hear 
them uttering a doubt that these scriptures were not written by 
the apostles, or the companions of the apostles, whose names they 
bear. They satisfy themselves with maintaining that the doctrine 
taught is not conformable to the intentions of Jesus Christ. If 
Marcion rejected three out of the thirteen epistles bearing the 
name of Paul, it was not because they were not Paul's, but because 
Paul wrote them under an evil influence ; and if he rejected 
Matthew and Peter, it was only because Peter and Matthew, he 
said, "judaised," — one in his Epistle, the other in his Gospel. 
But not one of the Marcionites hesitated to acknowledge that, 
in rejecting them, he set himself in opposition to the judgment 
of the Church. Let this double acknowledgment be carefully 
noticed, and let account be taken of this double testimony ren- 
dered to the historic authenticity of our holy books. It is of great 
force ; for, with all their hatred against the Church, and with so 
much knowledge and talent to oppose it, these audacious men, if 
they could have seen the least possibility of disputing these two 
facts, would certainly not have neglected to employ so effective a 
weapon, which, at a stroke, would have levelled their opponents, 
and ended the controversy for ever. 

To give the reader a more correct estimate of this proof, we 
shall pass rapidly under review the principal heresies of the period, 
beginning with Marcion, and then going back to the other sects 
which come nearest to the days of the apostles. 1 

1 We shall not speak here of the Ophites, nor the Cerinthians, nor the other 
heretics of the first century who are less known to us, nor of the Arians and 
Manicheans, who came later, nor even of Theodotus, the tanner of Byzantium, who 
flourished in the latter half of the second century. We confine ourselves to the 
first half. 



MAKCION. 



223 



Section Second, 
maecion. 

221. The Marcionite sects were undoubtedly among the most 
daring in their attempts against the Scriptures ; and yet we may 
see, even in their negations, what an irresistible testimony they 
render, both to the anterior existence of the first canon, and to the 
universal authority it then possessed in the churches of God. 

Marcion was born in the days of St John, about the end of the 
first century, at Sinope, on the borders of the Euxine Sea. His 
father, bishop of that city, having been made acquainted with his 
being guilty of an act of immorality, was obliged to exclude him 
from the church, and firmly refused to readmit him. Unable to 
bear this disgrace, Marcion left Sinope secretly, and repaired to 
Rome. 1 There, as he was a man of talent and energy, he soon 
acquired great personal influence, and was welcomed by the 
Roman clergy. He dared even to aspire to the first place, Epi- 
phpjiius says, {irpoehpla;) and when rejected by the elders (irpecr- 
fivrtpois) of the church, to whom the cause of his leaving Sinope 
had been made known, he threw himself in despair into the party 
of Cerdo. This man was a dangerous Syrian heretic, already 
notorious in Rome as the head of a powerful antijudaising sect. 
Marcion gave himself up entirely to his Gnostic views, and in a 
short time surpassed his master in the boldness of his doctrines, 
the great number of his disciples, and his attempts against the 
Scriptures. He methodised his negations with great precision, and 
impressed his system with the strongly-marked features of his 
own character. Very soon the attraction of his powerful person- 
ality and the seductive boldness of his philosophy gained for him, 
whether in Italy, Egypt, or Syria, or even in Persia, a large num- 
ber of disciples ; and his sect became so powerful and vigorous, 
that in the fourth century, if we may believe Epiphanius, it still 

1 Epiph., Haeres., xlii., 1. See also Cave, Diet. Hist. Eccl. ; Bingham, Orig. 
Eccl., i., p. 226; Massuet, De Gnostic. reh., § 135. [Ncander disputes the truth 
of the statement that Marcion was excommunicated for unchastity, &c. See his 
"General History of the Church," (Torrey's transl.,) vol. ii., p. 130, Bohn's 
ed.— Tr.] 



224 



TESTIMONY OF HEEETICS. 



maintained congregations and bishops. Irenseus 1 informs us that 
this daring man attempted to get himself acknowledged by the 
bishops of the Church ; and having met Polycarp in Rome, he 
was bold enough to say to him, " Dost thou know me, Polycarp ? " 
" I know thee/' replied the martyr " to be Satan's first-born/' 

We cannot tell, any more than Tertullian, 2 the exact time when 
Marcion fixed his residence in Rome. " In what year of the first 
Antoninus," said that father, "the influence of the dog-star ex- 
haled him from his native Euxine, I have not cared to investigate." 
But since Justin Martyr, in his first Apology, which was written 
in 139, 3 speaks of Marcion as still teaching — and at that time 
his doctrine had been widely disseminated — many years must have 
elapsed since his separation from the Church. His first arrival in 
the metropolis of the empire must have preceded, a very long time, 
the death of Hadrian. 

This remark is important. It brings us very near the days of 
St J ohn ; and the simultaneous presence in Rome of Cerdo, 
Marcion, Tatian, and Valentine with Justin Martyr, is also a fact 
very worthy of attention. It serves to confirm the testimony to 
the existence, the use, and the authority of the first canon in the 
contemporaneous Church, which men so different give at the same 
time and in the same place. 

222. " In separating the law from the gospel, Marcion," Ter- 
tullian says, "professed not to be an innovator, and only to re- 
store the apostolic rule, which had been falsified by his opponents, 
(non tarn innovasse regulam quam retio adulteratam recurasse.)" ± 

In general, the heretics of the second century, like many ra- 
tionalists of the nineteenth, from not having comprehended the 
harmony of the Divine revelations, and those intimate relations 
which, in the order of grace, connect the respective doctrines of 
the law and the gospel, could only see in these revelations a re- 
mediless antagonism. Entertaining these views, persuaded of their 
irreconcilableness, they received certain scriptures only, while re- 

1 Haeres., iii., 3. 

2 Adv. Marcion, i., 19 : — " Quote- quidem anno Antonini Majoris de Ponte suo 
exhalaverit aura canicularis, non curavi investigare ; de quo tamen constat, Anton- 
ianus est hereticus, sub Pio impius." 3 Apol., c. xxvi. 

4 Adv. Marcion, i., 20. 



MA.ECION. 



225 



jecting others, and indulging themselves in a morbid fondness 
for contrarieties, said they could not make either Peter or 
James agree with Paul, or Matthew and John with Luke. In 
the same way some, particularly the Ebionites, as Ireneeus states, 
holding Paul as an apostate from the law, (apostatam eum legis 
dicentes,) rejected him with intense dislike ; while Marcion, with 
many others, straining the doctrines of Paul in an opposite direc- 
tion, held, on the contrary, that he alone was a true apostle, and 
admitted into their canon only his epistles, reduced to ten, and 
the GosjDel of Luke. In their aversion to all that was Jewish, 
they went so far as to maintain that the God of the Jews (the 
Demiurgos or Creator of the visible world) was very different 
from the God preached by Jesus Christ. Marcion, moreover, 
like the rationalists of our day, pretended to establish, not only 
what he called the antitheses, (or contradictions of the two Testa- 
ments,) but also the antitheses of Peter and Paul, and of the 
evangelists, Luke and Mark, or Luke and John. His canon was 
divided into two parts, Epiphanius tells us, — the Evangelicon 
and the Apostolicon. As to his Apostolicon, it consisted only of 
ten epistles of Paul. Of the thirteen epistles which bear the 
name of this apostle he excluded the three pastoral epistles and 
the Epistle to the Hebrews, for he kept the Epistle to Philemon. 
Tertullian 1 has, besides, taken care to inform us that his arrange- 
ment of the epistles, without knowing why, was not that which 
the Church had been accustomed to observe. He also boasted of 
having restored the true title of the Epistle to the Ephesians, 
which he called the Epistle to the Laodiceans, (Eph. vi. 27.) And 
the same father assures us that he had made certain alterations 
in these epistles, particularly in the Epistle to the Romans, 
" taking away," he said, " what he pleased from the integrity of 
our instrument, 2 (auferendo quae voluit de nostri instrumenti in- 
tegritate.)" Yet Epiphanius, 3 who passed the same censure upon 
him, and who indicates seven of these alterations, shews that they 

1 Adv. Marcion, v., 20, 21. See also Epiphanius, Ilaeres., xlii. The latter puts 
in Marcion Philemon in the ninth place, and Philippians in the tenth. 

2 Adv. Marcion, v., 13. 

3 Haeres., xlii. Yet it would appear by Origen's commentary on Romans 
xvi. 25, that he omitted the two last chapters. 

P 



226 



TESTIMONY OF HEEETICS. 



were not of much importance, and consisted chiefly in retrench- 
ments. There were, indeed, only three for which there was not 
some authority. 

As to his Evangelicon, he has indulged, as we have said, in far 
greater liberties. He received only one Gospel, which he called 
the Gospel of Christ, and which was called in the Church the 
Gospel of Marcion, or the Gospel of the Black Sea, (the Euxine.) 
He himself had arranged and modified it ; and it was, simply (as 
Irenseus, Tertullian, and Epiphanius say unanimously) " a muti- 
lated 1 St Luke." The text of this Gospel formed the staple of 
the composition; but he made alterations and retrenchments, 
among others, that of the prodigal son, of the Saviour's nativity, 
and the circumstances of His death on the cross. 2 "These 
heretics," says Ireneeus, 3 " claiming to be more faithful and wise 
than the apostles, (sinceriores et prudentiores,) and alleging that 
these have announced the gospel still imbued with Judaism, 
(adhuc quae sunt Judaeorum sentientes,') have employed themselves 
in cutting the Scriptures in pieces, (ad intercidendas conversi sunt 
Scripturae,) ignoring some and mutilating (decurtantes) others, as 
if none were legitimate but such as they had reduced in size, 
(minorave?*unt.)" 

And it is deserving of notice that Marcion publicly avowed 
that he had taken away certain passages in the original Scriptures 
of Christ, (His opinor conciliis tot originalia instrumenta Christi 
delere Marcion ausus est.) "Thou hast thyself avowed it in a cer- 
tain letter/' adds Tertullian ;4 " but by what right hast thou done it ? 
Who art thou ? A prophet ? then prophesy. An apostle ? then 
preach in public. An apostolic man ? then think like the apostles. 
If a simple Christian, then believe what is given thee. But if 
thou art neither of all these, then I tell thee with justice, Die !" 

All these reproaches which the fathers cast upon him shew with 
what jealousy the text of our sacred books was then watched. 

223. Yet we may remark in passing, while on the subject of 
these heretics, that it must not be imagined that the mutilations 

1 See Halm's attempt to reconstruct Marcion's Gospel — Das Evang. Marcions in 
reiner ursprunglichen Gestalt. Konigsb., 1823. 

2 Epiph., Haeres, xlii. See Kirchhofer's Quellensammlung, p. 336, &c. 

3 Haeres., iii., 12, § 12. 4 De Carne Christi, cap. ii. 



MARCION. 



227 



of which Marcion and the Marcionites were guilty were a mal- 
practice frequently repeated. On the contrary, it was a very rare 
offence, such horror did it excite, and Marcion has remained so 
notorious in history for this excess of audacity, that Origen, 1 a 
hundred years after him, when going over his recollections of the 
Church, could say, " I have known no men who have so mutilated 
and remodelled (fieraxapd^apra^) the gospel as the followers of 
Marcion and those of Valentine — perhaps also those of Lucan." 
And yet, as to Valentine, have we not heard Tertullian assure us 
that this heretic employed a complete instrument ? so that he did 
violence to the Scriptures only by perverse glosses, and not by 
material alterations. 

224. Let us stop here to examine more closely the evidence of 
the testimony which Marcion rendered to the canon in the first 
quarter of the second century. And for this, imagining ourselves 
at Eome in the year 128, only twenty-five years after the death of 
St John, let us stand on the threshold of that pernicious school of 
philosophy where the young professor from Sinope expounds his 
Gnosis. Or better still, let us go eleven years later, when, in the 
same city, the martyr Justin, daring to address his first Apology 
to the emperor, the senate, and all the Eoman people, (/cal Stj/jlo) 
iravrl 'Pco/jlcilcdv,) he says to them, " How many impious persons 
are there whom none of you think of persecuting, and in particular 
one Marcion, from the Euxine Sea, 2 who is even now occupied in 
teaching his disciples to blaspheme God the Creator, and even to 
deny Him, pretending that there is one greater than He." Let 
us go, we say, to the door of that school where the persecutors 
of the Christians forbear molesting him, and there we shall ob- 
tain all the proofs which can be required of us of the existence 
of the canon. Had the Christian Church, we are asked, already, 
in the first year of the second century, its sacred collection of 
scriptures? But who can put this question after having visited 
Marcion and his school ? Who will suppose that the Church has 
not its collection, when this man, violently separated from it, has 
already his own ? He who in so many things has shewn himself 

1 Contra Celsum, ii., 27. 

2 Apol., i., 26. MapuLowa 6c riva TIoptikoi/, os KAI NYN "ETI eVri SiSdaKoov 
roCy nfidofxevavs. 



228 



TESTIMONY OF HERETICS. 



outrageous against the Scriptures ; who has maintained doctrines 
so revolting against God the Creator, against the Old Testament, 
against the incarnation of Jesus Christ, all the while calling 
himself a Christian philosopher — this very Marcion has had his 
well-defined canon, composed of one Gospel and ten epistles, while 
the Christian Church, which so bitterly reproached him for not 
receiving the rest, has not its own ! And to hear the modern men 
of learning tell us that the canon published by Marcion is the first 
of which ecclesiastical literature has left us any memorial ! As if 
the complaints of the fathers, who were indignant at his mutila- 
tions, are not the memorials of the complete canon of the con- 
temporaneous Church, as much as they are of the mutilated canon 
of this heretic ! 

225. Better to estimate this testimony we must carefully con- 
sider the six. following remarks : — 

(1.) It can be proved, by numerous citations from Tertullian and 
Irenaeus, that Marcion was well acquainted both with the collec- 
tion of the four Gospels and with the three epistles of Paul, which 
were excluded from his canon. This has been shewn by Kirch- 
hofer in his Quellensammlung, (Collection of the Sources.) 

(2.) Marcion never disputed the authority of the nine books of 
Scripture rejected from his collection. On the contrary, not only 
was he aware of their existence, but he knew the authority they 
had in the Church ; and, moreover, he never denied that they were 
rightly attributed to the authors whose names they bore. Only he 
pretended that they were infected with Judaism, and he set him- 
self to depreciate their authors, Tertullian tells us, in order to 
gain for his mutilated Gospel the reputation he took from theirs. 
{Connititur ad destruendum statum eorum Evangeliorum quae 
proprie et sub apostolorum 1 nomine eduntur, vel etiam apostoli- 
corum, 2 et scilicet fidem quam illis adimit suo conferat) On 
this account he is for us a very important witness. 

(3.) Marcion and the Marcionites avowed 3 that they employed 
themselves in mutilating the ancient Scriptures, (tot originalia 
instrumenta Christi,) which had been received before their time 
into the Church. " The Marcionites," Irenseus has already told 

1 It is thus lie designates the Gospels of Matthew and John. 

2 He here refers to Mark. 3 Iren., Haeres., iii., 12. 



MAECION. 



229 



us, "pretending to be more sincere and more wise than the 
apostles, have applied themselves to cutting into the Scriptures, 
rejecting some and mutilating others/' That is the reason why 
we have heard Tertullian opposing the canon of Marcion to the 
canon of the Church, (auferendo quae voluit de nostri instrumenti 
integritate) 1 

(4? ) We hear all his opponents (Tertullian, Irenseus, Origen, 
Epiphanius) charge him, not with introducing unknown texts, but 
with having altered those which were in circulation before him. 

(5.) Among the charges they make against him is one which, 
without being very grave, is important, as shewing us the extent 
to which the collection of the Scriptures had been studied in all 
the churches, and what place it had taken as an organic whole in 
the usages of the people of God. We have seen that Marcion, 
while retaining ten 2 of the thirteen epistles which the Church had 
attributed without exception to St Paul, had thought well to alter 
their order, and how he is blamed for this change by Tertullian in 
his fifth book against Marcion, and by Epiphanius in his forty- 
second chapter against heresies. How remarkable it is that, only 
twenty-five years after the death of the disciple whom Jesus loved, 
this collection should have become so familiar to all the churches 
of God, that they were already in the habit of arranging Paul's 
thirteen epistles and the four Gospels in one invariable order, 3 
though an order which, as we have repeatedly said, is by no 
means that of their composition ! How certainly must this 
arrangement of the sacred books have prevailed always and every- 
where, for Epiphanius in his charges against Marcion to have 
supposed that it dated from the days of the apostles. " Marcion," 
he says, "pats the Epistle to the Philippians in the second place, 
while, according to the apostle, it is in the sixth, (jrapa Be rdi 
a7roarb\(t) eKrrj) He puts Philemon in the ninth, while, accord- 

1 Adv. Marc, v., 13. 

2 We only speak here of the first canon. We shall treat in the sequel of the 
Epistle to the Hebrews. 

3 In the ancient Latin manuscript at Cambridge, (Beza),) the four Gospels are 
arranged thus — Matthew, John, Luke, and Mark. It appears that before Jerome's 
time this was the ancient order. It is the only one of the manuscripts of a high 
antiquity (says M. Berga de Xurey) which joins the Greek to the Latin trans- 
lation. 



230 



TESTIMONY OF HERETICS. 



ing to the apostle, it is the last, {irapa he tgj airoa-roXco ecr^drr] 
Keircu ;) the first to the Thessalonians in the seventh, while the 
apostle puts it in the eighth ; and as to the Epistle to the Eomans, 
he has put it (he says) in the fourth place, that, as far as he is 
concerned, nothing may remain in its place, that nothing might 
be right with him, (Zva fMyBev bpOov irap avrS elr})'" 1 

Certainly this unanimity of the churches in arranging our 
sacred books everywhere in the same order, and different from their 
respective dates, is in days so remote a very significant fact to 
shew us the place already taken by the canon in the usages of the 
universal Church. 

(6.) Lastly, the indignation of all the fathers on the subject of 
Marcion's attempts against the Scriptures, and the precise charges 
which they brought against him, attest with what holy jealousy 
the text of our Scriptures was then guarded in the churches 
of God. 

But the testimony of Tatian will come to complete that of 
Marcion. 

Section Thied. 
tatian. 

226. Cave and other ecclesiastical historians often complain of 
the uncertainty that prevails in the chronology of all the heretics 
of the second century. Thus, as to Tatian, while Epiphanius puts 
in the second year of Antoninus Pius (that is to say, in 149) the 
end of the long sojourn which this heretic made in Eome, whither 
he went to found a school of heresy, others would place these facts 
twenty years later. 2 As to ourselves, who are going back through 
the years of the second century, we think it convenient, without 
wishing to decide the question, to place Tatian immediately after 
Marcion, because history throws important light on that of the 
teacher of Sinope. 

He was, like Marcion, a clever, learned man, but haughty and 
impetuous, and, like him, resided for a time in Eome ; and again, 
like him, after having appeared to unite himself to the Church of 
God, violently broke off from it, and set himself against one part 
of its canon, but yet not against the same books. It is as such, 

1 Haeres., xlii., p. 368. 2 Cave, Scripta Eccles. Hist. Litt., vol. i., p. 75. 



TATIAN. 



231 



also, that Tatian renders our Scriptures a testimony which serves 
to complete that of Marcion and that of Justin Martyr. Born in 
Assyria, of a pagan family, he at first devoted himself with great 
ardour to the study of the philosophy of his time, when he repaired 
to Eome, and there met Justin, " that admirable man, (o 6av[ia- 
aicoTaTos 'Iovo-tlvos,)" as he calls him. 1 From that moment he 
made a profession of Christianity, and attached himself so closely 
to Justin, that after his martyrdom he aimed to continue his 
school. But very soon his success inflated him, and became 
his ruin, Irenseus said. He devoted his attention to the systems 
of error borrowed from the philosophies of the East, and on 
returning to Mesopotamia, he became the chief of the Encratites, 
ascetics who united the foolish fancies of Valentine with the 
repulsive theories of Marcion. 

"We have said that, with regard to the canon, Tatian completes 
at the same time the testimony of Justin and that of Marcion : 
of Justin, since he cites without hesitation the writings of Paul 
and those of John, while the works of the martyr which have come 
down to us say little of them ; and of Marcion, since he attributes 
directly to Paul the Ejustle to Titus, while Marcion, as we know, 
rejected it. 

Besides this, in his Address to the Greeks, Tatian makes evident 
allusions to the Gospel of John and to his Apocalypse. Moreover, 
we learn from Irenseus, 2 and also from Jerome, 3 that to defend 
his heresies, he called in the authority of the Epistles of Paul to 
the Corinthians and to the Galatians. 

But still further, we have to cite from this mischievous man a 
literary fact very significant for the authority of the canon, and 
more especially of the sacred collection of the four evangelists. It 
is, that among the great multitude of his works, (infinita volu- 
mina, says Jerome,) the authors of that time often name "the im- 
portant harmony of the four Gospels," 4 which he himself called, 
The Composition of the Four, (to Alcl Teaaapwv) " It was/' says 
Eusebius, 5 " a collection and a certain combination of the Gospels, 

1 In his Address to the Greeks, pp. 18, 19. 

3 Haeres., i. 28. See also Eusebius, II. E., iv., 29 ; Tatian, Orat. ad Grace, cap. 
xlii., 135, 18, 19. 3 De Scriptor., cap. xxix. 

4 Epiphanius says expressly the four Gospels. 6 II. E., iv., 29. 



232 TESTIMONY OF HEKETICS. 

(avvatyeiav Tiva /cal avvwycoyrjv . . . rcov evayyeXtcov aw- 

Om.)" 

See, then, already, so near the death of St John, the collection 
of the four evangelists acknowledged, thoughtfully read, and com- 
pared by the labours even of a dangerous heretic, who denied, 
with so many other truths of our faith, the humanity of our Lord, 
and the reality of His death. No doubt Tatian made some 
culpable retrenchments in this collection ; but these alterations do 
not appear on the first reading, and neither Eusebius nor Theo- 
doret (who speak of it) intimate that he introduced any fragment 
of an apocryphal Gospel. His work, even in the days of Eusebius, 
was still "used by certain persons who were not aware of the 
alterations, (/cat irapd tutiv elaeri vvv (frepeTcu.)" Epiphanius 
expressly tells us that it was composed of the four Gospels, and 
that many called it The Gospel according to the Hebrews. Lastly, 
Theodoret,! almost a century after Epiphanius, while informing us 
that Tatian had left out the genealogy of the Saviour, and the 
passages that point out His descent from David according to the 
flesh, tells us^that his book was still in circulation in some places. 
" I have myself found," he says, " more than two hundred copies 
in our churches, (of Syria,) which have received them with respect. 
I made use of them, without understanding the fraud, (jcaKovprylav^ 
but, having collected them all, I took them away, to replace them 
by the Gospels of the four evangelists." 

This testimony of Tatian is of great value ; but go back still 
higher in the century to arrive at Valentine and the six different 
sects which bear his name. 

Section Fourth. 

valentine and the valentinians. 

227. The Valentinians, as it would appear from all the fathers 
who have described them, were one of the most powerful and 
most pernicious of the Gnostic sects. Valentine, born in Egypt, 
began his public career as a teacher of the Platonic philosophy, 
but, like many other teachers of the same period, he established 
himself in Eome as the seat of his labours many years before 

1 Haeres., i., 20. 



VALENTINE AND THE VALENTINIANS. 



233 



Justin Martyr, on the one hand, or Marcion and Tatian on the 
other, had commenced theirs. Valentine preceded these two men, 
celebrated on such different grounds, and his testimony must be 
placed very much nearer the days of the apostles, for he had made 
himself known in 120. He said himself that he was a disciple of 
a friend of St Paul, and Irenseus tells us 1 that he came to Eome 
during the episcopate of Hyginus, and that he lived there to the 
time of Anicetus. He was, therefore, in the metropolis when 
Polycarp came on a mission from the Eastern Churches, and might 
have had Marcion among his hearers. His lectures attracted a 
crowd. A great number of admirers were attached to him, both 
from the superiority of his abilities and the power of his eloquence, 
{quia et ingenio poterat et eloquio.) " He had even aspired to the 
episcopate," says Tertullian,2 "and it was thought that, in the 
chagrin of his disappointed ambition, he broke off his connexion 
with the true Church, (cle Ecclesid authenticae regulae abrupit)" 
Yet his impieties did not exhibit themselves in all their audacity 
till after his retirement to the island of Cyprus. His principal 
disciples, Ptolemy, Secundus, Heracleon, Mark, and others, formed 
as many distinct sects, gained a conspicuous position in their age, 
and were in general better known than Valentine himself. 
Irenseus begins his great work on Heresies with an exposition of 
the strange Valentinian systems. Tertullian combats them in like 
manner in his book, Be Praescriptione Hereticorum, Clement 
in his Stromata, and, later still, Origen, Hippolytus, and others. 

228. But here, as to the first canon, it is a fact of the greatest 
value that already, in these remote days, Valentine and his dis- 
ciples, in spite of their most audacious heresies and violent hatred 
against the Churches of God, openly acknowledged the entire 
collection of the Scriptures at that time received. Valentine 
made war upon them only by the Oriental fancies of his imagina- 
tion, and by the boldness with which he dared to found the most 
pernicious systems of error on his strange interpretations. Neither 
he nor his followers directly rejected any of the Scriptures. He 
had the same canon of the New Testament as the contemporary 
Church. " Valentine, 5 ' said Tertullian, " appears to make use of a 
complete collection, (Valcntinas integro instrumento uti videtur;)" 

1 Haeres., iii., 4, 3. 2 Contra Valent., cap. iv. 



234 



TESTIMONY OF HERETICS. 



but, added he, " by the violence he does to the meaning of words, 
this man has taken away from the Scriptures, and added more to 
them, than was done openly and with a loud voice by Marcion 
himself, sword in hand, {exerte et palam machaerd,) the one per- 
verting by his interpretations where the other mutilated the texts." 
The fragments of his writings that have been preserved by the 
fathers shewed that he made use of the Scriptures like the Chris- 
tians of his age. When he cites the Epistle to the Ephesians, it 
is by calling it the scripture, and, in the same fragment, he 
clearly appeals to the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John, to the 
Epistle to the Eomans, to the Epistle to the Corinthians, 1 and 
also, though less clearly, to the Epistle to the Hebrews, and to the 
first of John. When Irenseus 2 reproaches the Valentinians for 
having dared to entitle a certain book composed by them, " The 
Gospel of Truth" he says, " he had had it only a little time," and in 
complete disagreement with the Gospels of the apostles. It was 
only a Gnostic commentary recently published to explain their 
errors, without their having ceased on this account to acknowledge 
with the universal Church the four canonical Gospels. 

We shall not embarrass ourselves here with their absurd doc- 
trines; we are occupied only by their historical testimony, and 
this testimony strikes us as so much the more significant since 
they abandoned themselves to the most extravagant fancies about 
their pleroma, their thirty aeons, their ten decades, and their female 
aeon or the mother Achamoth. We may see the strange fancies of 
this Christianised paganism seriously exposed and refuted in the 
great work of Irenseus, and also in other fathers. In that work 
we hear them citing themselves almost every book of the canon 
to defend their errors, and thus, without any apologetic intention, 
they attest the authority our Scriptures possessed throughout the 
contemporary Church. If we confine ourselves to example — to 
the fragments cited by Irenseus — we shall see the four Gospels 
adduced, (though with a manifest preference for that of John,) and 
a frequent use made of Paul's epistles, especially of the Epistles 

1 De Praescript. Haeret., cap. xxxviii. Tertullian opposes the ancient instru- 
ment to the new. This term, instrumentum, Quintilian applies to the writings of 
a lawsuit ; and in Suetonius, instrumentum imperii is an inventory or description 
of the empire. 2 Adv. Haeres., hi., 11, 9. 



HEEACLEON AND PTOLEMY. 



235 



to the Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, and Ephesians. "By 
means of a fallacious exegesis, (paSiovpyovvres t<z? e^nyrjaeLsy 
says that father, " they take their demonstrations (airohelt; eii) from 
the evangelical Scriptures, and the apostolic epistles, (i/c twv 
evayyeXi/ccov teal aTroaTokLKcbv.)" 1 

But more than this, and with all our desire to compress, we 
must have, among other Valeutinians, the two chiefs of their two 
most noted sects, Heracleon and Ptolemy, both of the Western 
school. 

Section Fifth, 
heracleon and ptolemy. 

230. These two heretical teachers must be regarded as anterior 
to Valentine, though they have been generally- classed among the 
Valentinians, on account of the similarity of their errors. 

Heracleon is represented by Clement of Alexandria 2 as the most 
distinguished (SoKificoraros:) teacher of the Valentinian school ; 
but what must render him more noticeable for us is, that he is 
the most ancient commentator on the New Testament in the West 
whose name has come down to us. 

We may judge of the antiquity to which these commentaries of 
Heracleon lead us back, when we state that he had made himself 
notorious in Sicily by his heresies when Bishop Alexander oc- 
cupied the see of Rome, (from 109 to 116,) that is to say, six 
years, or not more than thirteen years after the death of John ; 
for it was at the express request of the bishops of Sicily, assembled 
in council, that this bishop composed a work against Heracleon, 
abounding in declarations from the Holy Scriptures. 3 The writ- 
ings, therefore, of this heretic must have been already published, 
at the latest, only eight or ten years after St John's death, and 
perhaps much earlier. 

We cannot tell exactly in the present day what books of the 
New Testament Heracleon expounded. But we learn from Origen 
that he explained all the Gospel according to John; 4 and from 

1 Haer., lib. i., cap. iii. 2 Strom., L, iv., 9. 

3 Cave, Hist. Litt., p. 47. Bale, 1741. 

4 This father cites him at length more than forty times in his own commen- 
tary on John. The fragments of Heracleon on this Gospel have been collected by 
Grabe, " Spicilegium," ii., 85-117. 



236 



TESTIMONY OF HERETICS. 



Clement of Alexandria that he had also commented on that of 
Luke. 1 We have, besides, large fragments of him cited by the 
fathers, and learn from them that he quoted Matthew, as well as 
many epistles of Paul, with this formula, " the apostle says" par- 
ticularly the Epistle to the Romans, the Epistle to the Corinthians, 
and the second to Timothy. 

231. The reader should take special notice here of a fact which 
is of great importance at this epoch — the appearance of comment- 
aries on the New Testament, both in the West and East, (as we 
shall soon shew.) What must the writings of the New Testament 
have already become in the Church, for even heretics to experience 
the need of such works ? But more than this, we can see in the 
very character of the commentary of Heracleon what was then the 
belief formed in the churches touching the full inspiration of our 
sacred books, even to details in their language, since we see the 
author, particularly on the subject of the Pastoral Epistles, regard 
as significant even the slightest variations 2 in the words of the 
apostle. Certainly nothing can better attest the contemporary 
faith in the authenticity and authority of our Scriptures than the 
spectacle of these unhappy men obliged, in order to obtain some 
credit, to cite them and to pervert them as the books on which 
the faith of all the churches of God rested. Would they have 
acted thus if the authority of these books had not been for a long 
time fully established ? 

And as to Ptolemy, whom the fathers equally place among the 
Gnostics of the Italian school, to distinguish them from the 
Oriental Gnostics, Tertullian 3 places him before Heracleon. 4 Ire- 
nseus, who undertook to refute him, represents him as knowing 
how to give the most seductive appearance to the Gnostic errors ; 
and Epiphanius makes him known to us more fully by reciting a 
letter which he had written to one of his disciples, a female, named 
Mora. In that you will hear him cite in favour of his heresies 
the Gospel of Matthew, the prologue of that of St John, passages 
from Paul's Epistles to the Romans, the Corinthians, and the 
Ephesians ; as you will also find in the fragments preserved by 

1 Strom., iv., 9. 2 See him on 2 Tim. ii. 23 ; Clement, Strom., iv., 1. c. 

3 Adv. Valentine, iv. 4 Hares., xxxiv. 



EASILIDES AZsD HIS SOX ISIDORE. 



237 



Irenseus,* passages taken from the four Gospels, and the Epistles 
to the Eomans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, and Colos- 
sians. 

But we shall be able to remount still higher, I mean to Basilides 
and his son Isidore, to Carpocrates and to the Ebionites. 

Section Sixth. 

basilides and his son isidore. 

232. In our upward course through the crowd of heretics of 
the second century, it is often difficult, as we have said, to dis- 
entangle their respective ages. Yet it appears sufficiently clear 
that Basilides was much more ancient than Cerdo and Heracleon. 
He was the leader of a Gnostic sect of the Oriental school, and his 
son, who was equally celebrated after him, made a great number 
of disciples. 

Basilides had already rendered himself famous in Egypt, 2 about 
the year ] 1 2, and it is said that he died about the end of Hadrian's 
reign. He professed to have had for his master a companion of St 
Peter, (Glaukias, his interpreter.) A disciple of Menander, who was 
himself a disciple of Simon the Magician, Basilides was among the 
first Gnostics, like one of those en/ants perdus who are set in the 
forefront of the battle. He betook himself from Syria to Persia, 
where he spread the errors on the origin of evil that were at 
a later period propagated by Manes, and after that he returned 
to found a school in Egypt. He endeavoured to recommend his 
pernicious doctrines by an eloquence inflated with all the pomp of 
language. According to him, Christ did not assume our flesh, 
and suffered only in appearance. He reckoned 365 heavens, of 
which he recited the birth, placing above all abraxas a mystic 
power, the name of which in Greek letters forms the number 3G5, 
and which he made use of for magical purposes. 

Clement, Tertullian, Origen, Eusebius, 3 and Epiphanius, who all 
speak of this pernicious man, have preserved fragments of his 

1 Adv. Haeres., i., 1, 8, vi., 35. 

2 See Cave, Hi.st. Litt., p. 49; Clement, Stromata, i., 7 

3 HLit. Eccles , iv., 7. 



238 



TESTIMONY OF HEKETICS. 



writings ; and Eusebius tells us that Agrippa Castor, a very able 
and celebrated writer of that epoch, powerfully refuted them. 

234. All these testimonies shew us that Basilides was in the 
East what Heracleon had been in the West — the most ancient of 
the known commentators on the New Testament ; for he had also, 
Eusebius tells, " composed twenty-four books of commentaries 
(ifjyyyTiKcbv) on the gospel." Here we see the gospel commented 
upon publicly in the East, very near the time of St John, as it 
was in the West ! Besides this, Clement of Alexandria 1 tells us, 
that his followers supported their doctrines relative to marriage 
on Matt. xix. 11, 12, and 1 Cor. viii. 9 ; and another of their errors 
on what Paul said to the Komans, vii. 7, "By the law is the 
knowledge of sin." Basilides, also, Clement affirms, 2 cited in the 
twenty- third of his Exegetics a beautiful passage from the 1st 
Epistle of Peter, (iv. 14-16 ;) and we find Origen^ censures him 
for wishing to found his dogma of metempsychosis (jjuerevcrco- 
fjLarcQo-eays) on those words of St Paul to the Romans, " Eor I was 
alive without the law once," (vii. 9,) that is to say, before being in 
this human body. 

235. We might proceed still further with this review of the 
primitive heretics, and go back to Cerinthus, or Menander, or 
Simon the Magician, to listen to new testimonies. We might cite 
Carpocrates and his son Epiphanes, more ancient than Basilides, 
and who, while practising magic, and holding the doctrine of 
metempsychosis, did not hesitate to vindicate their moral irregu- 
larities by quotations from Luke, (xii. 52,) from Matthew, (v. 25,) 
from the Epistles of Paul to Timothy, (1 vi. 20, 2 i. 14,) and from 
the First Epistle of John, (v. 19.) 4 Above all, we might appeal 
to the most ancient sect, the Ebionites, who began in the lifetime 
of the apostles, and were violent Judaizers, denying the Divinity 
of Christ, and setting themselves against Paul and Luke. Never- 
theless, they raised no objection to the authority of the epistles of 
this apostle, nor of the acts of Luke, nor of the Gospels of Mark, 
Luke, and John, though they made, by means of a mutilated 

1 Stromata, iii. 2 IV. Opp., p. 504. Paris, 1629. 

3 In Ep. ad Roman, cap. v. Opp., torn, iv., p. 549, edit. Bened. 

4 See Iren., Haeres., i., 25 ; Tertull., De Praescript., cap. xxv- 1 Orig. in Genes., 
ch. i. ; Kirchhc-fer, Quellensamml., pp. 419, 420. 



THE GOSPEL OF THE EBIOXITES. 



239 



Matthew, a Gospel which was called The Gospel of the EbionitesX 
But we have said enough, and we hasten to come at last to the 
apostolic fathers, so called because they had seen with their own 
eyes the apostles of the Lord. 

1 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., hi., 27. The reader who wishes to pursue the study of 
these witnesses further, may consult Bunsen's Hippolytus, Kirchhofer's Quellen- 
sammlung, and the recent work of Mr Westcott on the Canon, pp. 301- -305, Cam- . 
bridge, 1855. 



CHAPTER X. 



the apostolic fathers. 

Section First, 
their small number and their value. 

236. It was in the time of these fathers that the Church, de- 
prived of its living prophets, was obliged henceforward to advance 
towards the kingdom of heaven by the sole light of the written 
Word. Their testimony, such as it is, is fitted to give us the 
utmost satisfaction ; but we must not forget their small number. 

Although the name of apostolic father might belong to men 
who, like Ignatius and Polycarp, while having known personally 
some one of the apostles, prolonged their old age even to the 
middle of the second century, they are, as we have said, extremely 
few ; and, besides, their authentic writings do not form all together 
more than a very small volume, composed of epistles only, and 
these of no great length. We can reckon only eight, or, according 
to others, twelve. The following is their order, beginning with 
the most ancient. One by Clement, the second bishop of Rome, 
to the church at Corinth ; one by Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, to 
the church of the Philippians ; one of the same church of Smyrna, 
narrating the martyrdom of Polycarp ; three of Ignatius, bishop 
of Antioch, to P^olycarp, to the church at Ephesus, and to that at 
Rome ; 1 one on the martyrdom of Ignatius ; and, lastly, one to 

1 We have said that some persons reckon the writings of the apostolic fathers 
to amount to twelve, instead of eight, because they include four epistles of 
Ignatius, which are now strongly suspected to be spurious. (See Prop. 253, &c.) 



CHARACTER OF THEIR TESTIMONY. 



241 



Diognetus, but of which we know neither the author nor the date, 
though its authenticity is universally admitted. 1 

We do not add The Shepherd of Hennas, because its date, now 
known by the fragment of Muratori, 2 is too late to give it a place 
among the apostolic fathers. Still less shall we add some other 
works, which almost all the learned men of the present day place 
in the rank of supposititious books — the Second Epistle, attributed 
to Clement, his pretended Homilies, and the pretended Epistle of 
Barnabas. 3 

237. Modern rationalism has made great efforts to weaken the 
testimony of these fathers. 

The first objection is founded on the numerical superiority of 
these citations of the Old Testament to those they have made from 
the New ; whence it may be inferred, it is said, that our canon 
was either indifferent or unknown to them. But this fact alleged 

1 At least to the 11 tb chapter. (Hefele, Patrum Apostol. Opera. Tubing., 
1847. Proleg.) 

2 This fragment states that Hermas was a brother of Pius I., bishop of Rome. 
(See Prop. 192.) 

3 The following reasons for rejecting the Epistle of Barnabas are given more at 
large in Hefele, (Patrum Apostol., proleg., p. 14):— 1. We have a part of this 
epistle only in a Latin version. [The whole of the original Greek has been 
recently discovered by Tischendorf. See the prolegomena to his third edition of 
the Septuagint, (Lips., I860,) p. 96. — Tk.] 2. The true Barnabas must have 
died between 60 and 62 ; but it may be seen, from the sixteenth chapter of this 
epistle, that it was composed after the destruction of Jerusalem. 3. If this 
epistle had been held to be authentic by the primitive Christians, it would have 
been inserted in the canon, because Barnabas was a prophet, (Acts xiii. 1.) 4. It 
contains many extravagant and erroneous expressions which it is impossible to 
attribute to the true Barnabas, (the apostles, for example, he calls virep naaav 
apapriav dvopdirepoi.) 5. The tenth chapter contains ridiculous opinions and 
indelicate details which cannot be ascribed to this apostolic man. 6. The true 
Barnabas, who had often travelled through Asia Minor and sojourned in Syria, 
knew perfectly well that what is said in chap. ix. of the circumcision of all the 
priests of the idols, and of all the Syrians, is false. 7. The puerile allegories 
which fill the fifth chapter and the six following come from a man very different 
from him whose eloquence made him be called by the apostles HS^^ "IB- 
8. It is impossible that the true Barnabas, who was a Levite, and had lived at 
Jerusalem, could utter on the Jewibh rites the falsehoods in chaps, vii. and 
viiL 9. This piece betrays an antijudaism, contrary to the teaching of the Scrip- 
tures, on circumcision, (chap, ix.;) on the Sabbath, (chap, xv.;) on the economy 
of the Old Testament, which he asserts ceased not at the promulgation of the 
gospel, but when Moses broke the tables of the law, (chaps, iv. and xiv.) All this 
savours of the Gnosticism of the second century, and its foolish wisdom. 

Q 



242 



THE APOSTOLIC FATHEES. 



by the rationalists does not exist. If you except Clement of 
Kome, who wrote very near the time of Paul's martyrdom, and, 
consequently, was disposed (as the apostles had been) to quote 
the Old Testament very frequently rather than refer to contem- 
poraneous writings, you will find that the apostolic fathers have 
made, on the contrary, very frequent use of the New Testament. 
Indeed, so little ground is there for this objection, that we shall 
more be struck by the contrary excess. In Poly carp, for example, 
you will find almost fifty quotations from the New Testament for 
one from Moses and the prophets ; while, in the Epistle to Diog- 
netus, you will be even struck with the studious care with which 
the author seems to avoid the Old Testament. 1 

238. A second objection of the rationalists is the want of pre- 
cision in the passages where the fathers seem to adduce the New 
Testament. They do not quote them, it is said, either directly or 
correctly, and when it happens that they give a sentence exactly, it 
is almost always without naming the author ; this must bring us 
to the conviction that these fathers had not the same books in 
their hands as ourselves. But this second objection is of no more 
value than the first ; for the examples we shall cite go to shew that 
almost always, on the contrary, the language of these fathers is 
manifestly that of authors quite full of our Scriptures, and whose 
readers are intimately acquainted with the sacred Word. The 
apostolic fathers pour forth and spread abroad the sayings of our 
holy books in their own language ; they take them freely, and 
from memory, without restricting themselves to the same terms ; 
they often blend several passages in the same sentence, so as to 
make a continuous discourse ; they paraphrase them when they 
quote them to adapt them better to their own thoughts ; and you 
see they are satisfied that their readers will understand them at 
half a word, and recognise immediately the source from which 
they have drawn their materials. Is it not just so that in our 
own day men most intimately acquainted with the Scriptures 
speak, when they address other men who are nourished by the 
same spiritual food? Let us open their letters, written under 
circumstances such as those of the apostolic fathers, and we shall 

1 See Semisch, Justin der Martyrer; Breslau, 1840; vol. i., p. 180. Hefele, 
Patr. Apost., proleg., p. 77. 



ILLUSTRATIONS FEOM CALVIN'S LETTERS. 



243 



be struck with the resemblance. We shall even recognise, in 
reference to their preoccupation with the Scriptures, a superiority 
in the latter ; for it -must not be forgotten that the only writings 
which have come down to us of these men of God are pastoral 
epistles, composed, not to inculcate doctrines, but to exhort, to 
console, to recount the examples of martyrs, and to encourage 
their brethren. 

239. Such, to give an examine from later times, were the letters 
of the great Calvin, a man so eminently distinguished by his 
reverence for the Scriptures. Take his two hundred and seventy- 
two letters in French, and compare them. This interesting collec- 
tion, recently edited by Jules Bonnet, has struck us vividly by its 
resemblance to the epistles of the apostolic fathers, as to the 
manner of quoting the New Testament. While writing these 
lines we have the first volume before us; and, though admiring it, 
we very soon discover that the Reformer himself referred much 
less frequently to the New Testament in his letters than these 
fathers did in theirs. We do not hesitate to affirm that, if we 
were disposed to reason about this great theologian in the same 
style as the German rationalists have adopted towards Polycarp, 
Ignatius, and Clement, we might legitimately deduce from his 
letters the same conclusions against the existence of a canon in 
the sixteenth century which they have drawn from our eight 
epistles against the existence of a canon in the second. In the 
Latin text of Hefele these eight epistles occupy eighty-seven 
pages in octavo; 1 while the two volumes of Calvin contain up- 
wards of a thousand. But suppose nothing was left to us of the 
Reformer but his French letters, certainly future critics, in taking 
the first eighty-seven pages, or the second, or as far as the tenth, 
would have much stronger grounds for exjH'essing doubts on the 
canon of Calvin than modern critics have for those they have ex- 
pressed on the canon of the fathers. Could Calvin, they might 
ask, make use of the same Gospels or the same epistles as our- 
selves? And in these Gospels, or these epistles, can a text truly 
like our own be found? In fact, in his French letters, which are 

1 That of Clement at most thirty-five pages, (deducting the notes ;) the three of 
Ignatius eighteen, that of his martyrdom five ; that of Polycarp seven, that of his 
martyrdom eleven ; and that to Diognetus eleven. 



2U 



THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 



hortatory and pastoral, (like those of Polycarp, Clement, or Igna- 
tius,) he does not quote the New Testament more than they do, 
or, rather, he quotes it much less. No doubt, the spirit of his 
correspondence is wholly impregnated with it ; but he does not 
quote it textually, and, like the fathers, does it almost always 
from memory ; he paraphrases it more or less ; he adapts the 
terms to his purpose to retain only the most striking point ; he 
rarely names the author, and indicates him rather in vague terms, 
just as do the fathers. Take, for example, his touching letter to 
Mme. de Cany on the eminently Christian death of Mme. de Nor- 
mandie, (vol. i., p. 295,) an epistle almost as long as that of Poly- 
carp to the Philippians, and compare it with that. It contains 
only a single phrase from the New Testament, and with a very 
slight reference, — " St Paul, treating of charity, does not forget that 
we ought to weep with those that weep." Again, take his four ad- 
mirable letters to the students of Lausanne, the martyrs at Lyons, 
and that to the martyr Dimonet. In the last, (p. 367,) he quotes 
only two short sentences, without marking either the place or the 
author. In the first, to the martyrs at Lyons, having been con- 
sulted on points of doctrine, (vows, celibacy, monastic poverty, and 
the nature of the glorified body,) he adduces expressly one passage 
from Matthew, two from Paul, and one from the Apocalypse ; but 
in the second, (p. 371,) he cites none of them, excepting that he 
says, in vague terms, " Let me remind you of that saying, that 
stronger is he that is in you than he that is in the world." In 
the third, (p. 382,) there is not a single quotation, though the 
whole letter, throughout its five pages, is imbued with unction 
from on high. In the fourth, there is one short expression — " i" 
know in whom I have believed;" and yet how does he introduce 
it? Without naming either Paul or his epistle, and then by 
paraphrasing it : — " You can say with that valiant champion of 
Jesus Christ, ' I know from whom I received my faith.' " Reason, 
then, about Calvin in the style of the German rationalists, when 
they speak of Clement or Ignatius. " What !" (you might very 
well say,) " in this long letter, written by the greatest Reformer 
of the sixteenth century to young martyrs immured in a dungeon, 
there is not another citation from the whole New Testament! 
Calvin, then, could not have had our canon ! And even there is 



THE EPISTLE TO DIOGNETUS. 



245 



nothing to attest that in this short phrase he intended to cite the 
Second Epistle to Timothy, or, at least, if he did so intend, that he 
had before him the same Greek text as onr own, since we do not 
find in it the exact translation of Paul's words ! " But enough of 
this. 

We know very well that this mode of citation, very far from 
indicating a time when the canon did not exist, marks, on the 
contrary, a time when the Scriptures were everywhere spread 
abroad, read in all public assemblies, familiar to all, small and 
great, in the memory of all, and so recognised by half a word. 
Why, then, not reason on the epistles of Clement, Ignatius, and 
Polycarp, as any one would do on those of Calvin ? 

Perhaps some apology should be made for having given too 
much space to objections which will have their day, and will soon 
be forgotten. We now come to these eight letters, and we will 
begin with the latest. 

Section Second, 

the epistle to diognetus. 

240. The name of the apostolic person to whom we owe this 
eloquent production remains unknown to us ; and all we know of 
Diognetus is that he was a pagan of distinction. The majority of 
learned men have for a long time 1 attributed this epistle to Justin 
Martyr. But, besides that the too late age of this father does not 
correspond with what this author says of his own, 2 the manifest 
superiority of his style does not allow us to think of Justin ; while 
his doctrines, antijudaical to excess, allow it still less. Others, 
on the contrary, ascribe it to Clement of Rome ; and others to 
Apollos. 3 It is, without doubt, more ancient than Justin ; but it 
is also more recent than those two men of God ; and we rather 
think with Hefele, that the allusions in the seventh chapter to 
great contemporary persecutions, and the rapid increase of the 

1 Cave, Teutzel, Fabricius, &c. 

2 Chap, xi., of his having been a hearer of the apostles. 

3 Lumper, De Vita Patrum, torn, i., p. 159. (See Mohler, Patrologie, p. 159 ; 
and Gallandi. See Hefele, 79.) 



246 



THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 



Church, assign its place at the end of Trajan's reign, (117,) or to- 
wards the beginning of Hadrian's, (133.) 

But if we examine this remarkable piece, we shall soon recog- 
nise in the author a zealous disciple of Jesus. He addresses him- 
self, it is true, to a man who is still a stranger to the New Testa- 
ment ; but we perceive that he himself is thoroughly imbued with 
it, and that he was living in the midst of a people who were 
nourished like himself by that heavenly manna. 

241. In the fourth page, where he recalls to Diognetus the 
superstitious practices of the Jews, devoted to the observance 
(7raparrjpr)aLv) of months, and days, and times, (fcatpcov,) you see 
him borrow the language of Paul, (Gal. iv. 10.) In hfe fifth 
chapter, in which he describes the life of Christians, you still find 
paraphrased expressions from the epistles of the apostle to the 
Corinthians and Philippians. 1 " They are in the flesh," he says, 
" but do not live according to the flesh ; they pass their time on 
earth, but they are citizens of heaven ; they love all men, and are 
persecuted by all ; they are not known, and are condemned ; they 
are put to death, and made alive ; they are esteemed beggars, and 
enrich many ; they are destitute of all things, and yet abound in 
all things ; they are treated with insult, and glorified in their 
insults ; they are blasphemed, and are justified ; they are re- 
proached, and they bless/' &c. 

In his eleventh chapter, in which he is speaking of communion 
with Christ, and of His benefits for docile souls who keep within 
" the limits traced by faith, and indicated by the fathers," he adds, 
"Then the fear of the law is celebrated, and the grace of the 
prophets is known, the faith of the Gospels is established, the 
teaching (irapaBocrfs) of the apostles is guarded, and the grace of 
the Church leaps (afapra) with joy." 

In his ninth chapter, in which he explains the mission of the 
Son of God, " His goodness, (xprjaTOTrjra,) 2 His power, and His 
superabounding love towards men, (jjTrepfBaXkovar)? tyCkavOpw- 
7rt<z9,y ; he says, " He himself took upon Him our sins, He gave up 
His own Son as a ransom in our stead, (Xurpov virep rj/Acov,) the 

1 2 Cor. vi. 8-10; and also Phil. iii. 18-20; 1 Cor. iv. 12. A comparison with 
the Greek will shew most clearly these references of his letter to the epistles. 

2 Rom. ii. 4, xi. 32 ; Titus iii. 4. 



THE EPISTLE TO DIOGNETUS. 



247 



holy for the lawless, the just for the unjust, the incorruptible for 
the corruptible, the immortal for mortals. By what could our 
sins be covered but by His righteousness ? By whom was it pos- 
sible that we, the lawless and the impious, could be justified, ex 
cepting by the only Son of God ? Oh, sweet exchange ! Oh, in- 
scrutable operation ! Oh, unexpected benefits ! ("12 t?;? y\v?cela$ 
airaXkay?]^, oj r^? ave^iyyiciGTOV hrjfitovpy[a<=;, co tcov airpoaBotcrjTWv 
evepyeaicov,) that the iniquity of many should be hidden in one 
Just One, and that, by the righteousness of one, (^Lfccuoavvr) 
Be evb?,) He should justify many of the lawless, (rroWovs clvo/jlovs 

And again, in the twelfth chapter, having shewn that, in the 
soul of the believer, as in the paradise of God, " the tree of know- 
ledge must never be separated from the tree of life," he says, 
" Life cannot be secure without knowledge, or knowledge without 
life ; wherefore each is planted near the other." 

He then adds these remarkable words, in which he appeals to 
the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, as a modern Christian 
pastor might do in the midst of our flocks : — " Observing the 
power of this union, the apostle, blaming the knowledge (rrjv 
yvcoaiv) which is exercised without the truth of the commandment 
for life, says, Knowledge puffeth up, but charity buildeth up;" the 
author employing without any change St Paul's own words, 77 
yvwais cf)v<7ioi, rj Be aydirr) olfcoBo/xei, (1 Cor. viii. 1.) 

Here, then, at the beginning of the second century, the Epistle 
to Diognetus directly quotes the apostle Paul and his Epistle to 
the Corinthians ! The author had at that time the sacred collec- 
tion "before him, or carried it reverently in his memory, and, more- 
over, he wrote in the midst of a Christian people, among whom 
our Scriptures were universally known ; for he does not even give 
himself the trouble to specify the name of him whom he calls the 
apostle, nor the title of his epistle. But why should he take this 
trouble ? Would not these four words be sufficient for every one 
then, as at the present day, to be able to recognise the epistle, and 
lay his finger on the passage? 

We now go back to Polycarp, and begin with his martyrdom. 

1 See Romans v. 12-21 



248 



THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 



Section Third, 

THE CIRCULAE (eytcvKkloi) EPISTLE OF THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA 

242. This is certainly one of the most interesting monuments 
of ecclesiastical antiquity, as it is one of the most authentic. We 
find it inserted almost entire in the history of Eusebius.l It was 
at the request of a church in Phrygia that the church of Smyrna 
wrote this circular letter to all the parishes of the universal Church. 
It will be found to be imbued entirely with the spirit of the Scrip- 
tures. Scaliger, in his notes on Eusebius, declares that he had 
never seen anything in the history of the Church which more 
deeply affected him. "I seemed to be another man/' he said, 
" after reading it." 

Let us now listen to the first chapter : — 

" Almost all things that went before happened," it says, " that 
the Lord might shew us from above a testimony (or martyrdom) 
according to the Gospel, (to Kara to evayyeXiov /JLapropLov.) . . . 
For who would not admire the generosity, and endurance, and 
love towards the Lord of these witnesses ? . . . Staying themselves 
on the grace of Christ, they despised earthly tortures. They had 
before their eyes the escaping from the fire that is eternal, and 
never to be quenched, and they looked with the eyes of the heart 
on the goods that are reserved for those who persevere, which ear 
hath not heard, nor eye seen, nor has it entered into the heart of 
man" (chap, ii.) 

We find ourselves here in this first page not only on the height 
of apostolic faith, but with that faith expressed in the very words 
of Paul to the Corinthians, (1 Cor. ii. 9.) 

And, a few lines lower, (chap, iv.,) giving an account of the sad 
fall of a Phrygian named Quintus who offered himself to persecu- 
tion, and lost courage at the sight of the lions brought out for his 
punishment, the epistle makes this reflection — "Therefore, bre- 
thren, we do not praise those who offer themselves voluntarily, 

1 Book iv., chap. xv. The Acts of this martyr are the most ancient that 
exist ; but as to the precise time when the event took place, the learned are not 
agreed. Cave and Lardner place it in 147; Gieseler and Neander in 167. 



THE EPISTLE OF POLYCAEP. 



249 



for this is not what the Gospel 1 teaches, (eiretBfj ovx omm SlSclct- 
K€t to evayyekiov.)" 

The narrative presents other quotations from the Sacred Word 
which for brevity we do not mention ; but when the venerable 
bishop, eighty-five years old, appeared before the proconsul, who 
commanded him to swear by the fortune of Caesar, we hear imme- 
diately appeal to our Scriptures, (Rom. xiii. 1 ; Titus iii. 1,) — "It 
is my duty to answer you, for we have been taught to render, as it 
becomes us, the honour to principalities and powers ordained by 
God — (SeStSdyfieOa yap appals teal i^ovaia^ vtto tov Oeov 
TerajyfJLevaLS tijatjv Kara to 7rpo<rf}/cov ttjv fjurj (SKairrovaav rjfias 
a7rov€fj,eiv,) — the honour, at least," he added, " that hurts us not," 
(that is, before God.) 

But above all, his last prayer, in the fourteenth chapter, ought 
to be read. We pass on to his own letter. 

Section Foueth. 
the epistle of polycaep. 

243. This admirable monument is at once of an antiquity ap- 
proaching so near the apostles, of an authenticity so perfectly 
attested, and so abundantly rich in its quotations of Scripture, 
that itself alone would furnish satisfactory evidence of the uni- 
versal use of the canon in the first years of the second century. 

As to its antiquity, the letter itself tells us (chap. 13) that it 
was written very near the martyrdom of Ignatius, (the year 107,) 
that is, only four years after John's death. We know that Poly- 
carp had been a disciple of the apostles ; " he had lived/' as 
Irenaeus 2 says, " in intimacy with men who had seen the Lord ; " 
and as Jerome 3 reports, was placed over the church at Smyrna 
by the apostle John himself. 

And as to its authenticity, we have the most unimpeachable 
miarantees ; Irenaeus, who, himself a disciple of Polycarp, could 
not be deceived about the letter, mentions it with high com- 
mendation ; 4 Eusebius, who speaks of it more than once, quoting 

1 An evident allusion to Matt. x. 23. 3 Contra Haeres., iii., 36. 

3 Catal. Script. Eccl., cap. xvii. 

4 In his third book, Contra Haeres., oh. iii.; and in Eusebius, (H. E., iv., 11.) 



250 



THE APOSTOLIC FATHEES. 



faithfully many passages from the ninth and thirteenth chapters, 
which are still found there ; and Jerome 1 in his turn, who tells 
us of the high rank this epistle held in the esteem of the first 
Christians, and the use made of it in his time for public reading 
in many churches. 

We find ourselves, then, very near the apostles, and by means 
of a most incontestable monument. 

244. But it would be difficult to discover, even in our days, a 
composition more saturated with Scripture. Its Latin translation 
does not occupy more than seven pages in the octavo text of 
Hefele ; and yet you may count at least forty or fifty quotations 
from the New Testament. The whole epistle, from one end to the 
other, reveals a piety which is immersed in the Sacred Word, and 
thinks in apostolic language. 

We may form some estimate of it from the first chapter. It 
opens in the apostolic style : — " Polycarp and the presbyters with 
him, to the church of God sojourning at Philippi. Mercy and 
peace from God the Almighty, and from the Lord Jesus Christ 
our Saviour, be multiplied to you ! I greatly rejoice with you 
in our Lord Jesus Christ that you have received the copies of true 
charity, and that you have accompanied, as it became you, those 
who were bound in bonds worthy of saints, which are the diadems 
of the elect of God and of our Lord ; and that the firm root of 
your faith, renowned from ancient times, (Phil. i. v.,) remains until 
now, and bears fruit unto our Lord Jesus Christ, who endured to 
face death for our sins, whom God raised, having loosed the 
pains of Hades, (Xvcras ras a)S?m? rov aSov, Acts ii. 24,) and 
in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with 
joy unspeakable and full of glory, (1 Pet. i. 8 ;) a joy into which 
many of you desire to enter, knowing that ye are saved by grace, 
not of works, (Eph. ii. 8, 9,) but by the will of God, through Jesus 
Christ." 

Here, then, we see the contemporary of the last years of the 
apostles, who, in a very short chapter, shews himself so filled with 
their writings that he scatters them abroad in superabundance. 
It is like a man who gives his national accent to every word he 
utters. We have just heard him quote, in quick succession, with- 

1 Catal. Script. EccL, cap. xvii. 



THE EPISTLE OF POLYOARP. 



251 



out effort, without even naming them, three or four scriptures of 
the New Testament, and shew his readers that, like them, he carried 
at the same time on the tablet of his memory the Book of Acts, 
the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians, the Epistles to the Philip- 
j)ians, and the catholic Epistle of Peter ; and that he mixed them 
with his own thoughts in one continued discourse. And if such 
was his first chapter, such also, we shall find, will be the thirteen 
others. 

The second begins at once with the words of St Peter, and 
however short, it gives evidence, especially in the Greek, that the 
author had before him the Gospels of Luke and of Matthew, the 
Acts of the Apostles, the epistles of Paul, and the first of Peter. 
" Wherefore," he says, " having girded up your loins, (Bob dva^co- 
adfievoi Ta? dacjivas v/xcov, 1 Pet. i. 13,) serve the Lord with 
fear, (Ps. ii. 2,) forsaking vain-babbling, (rrjv /cevrjv jjuaratdKo^iav, 
1 Tim. i. 6,) and the error of the multitude, believing in Him who 
has raised our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, and given Him 
glory, (1 Pet. i. 21,) and made Him sit at His right hand ; to 
whom are subject all things, heavenly and terrestrial, whom 
every breath worships, who comes as judge of the living and of 
the dead, (Acts xvii. 31,) and whose blood God will require of 
those who do not believe in Him. But He ivho raised Him from 
the dead will raise us also, if we do His will, and walk in His 
commandments, and love what He loves ; abstaining from all in- 
justice, fraud, avarice, evil-speaking, and false witnessing ; not 
rendering evil for evil, nor railing for railing, (J) XoiSoplav 
dvrl XotBoplas, 1 Pet. iii. 9,) nor a blow for a blow, nor cursing 
for cursing; being mindful of what the Lord said when teaching, 
(Matt. v. 2, vii. 1,) Judge not, that ye be not judged ; forgive, 
and it shall be forgiven you, (Luke vl 2; Matt. vi. 12, 14;) 
with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again, 
(Matt, vil 2 ;) and blessed are the poor and persecuted for 
righteousness* sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God," (Luke 
vi. 30.) 

Certainly these two chapters will be sufficient to characterise 
Polycarp and his age as far as the canon is concerned; but we 
should like to quote the third, since it is very short, and the holy 
bishop makes a more direct mention in it of Paul and his writings, 



252 



THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 



in reference to the inspired epistle which they had received fifty 
years before. 

245. Chapter iii. : — " These things I have written to you, my 
brethren, concerning righteousness,' not arrogating anything to 
myself, but because you have invited me. For neither I nor any 
one like me can attain to the wisdom (rfj aofyia, 2 Pet. iii. 15) 
of the blessed Paul, who, when he was among you, taught accu- 
rately and firmly in the presence of the men who then lived the 
words concerning the truth ; and who, when absent, wrote epistles 
to you, into which, if you look closely, you will be enabled to be 
built up in the faith given to you." 

246. The fourth chapter, on avarice, begins in the same way, 
with textual quotations from the first Epistle to Timothy, (vi. 
10,) and from the Epistle to the Ephesians, (vi. 11 ;) the fifth 
chapter with a quotation from the Epistle to the Galatians, (vi. 7,) 
and with some very clear allusions (in the Greek) to 1 Tim. iii. 
8 ; to 2 Tim. ii. 12 ; to Philip, i. 27 ; to 1 Pet. ii. 11 ; to 1 Cor. 
vi. 9, 10 ; the sixth chapter with allusions to 2 Cor. v. 10 ; to 
the Epistle to the Romans xii. 17 ; and to the Gospels of Luke 
(vi. 38) and Matthew (vii. 2;) the seventh chapter with these words, 
from 1 J ohn iv. 3, " Whosoever confesseth not that Jesus Christ is 
come in the flesh, is an antichrist;" and he adds, "Whoever does 
not confess the testimony of the cross, is of the devil ; therefore, 
leaving the vanity of the multitude and false doctrines, let us 
return to the word given us from the beginning, (Jude iii.,) 
watching unto prayer, (1 Pet. iv. 7,) and beseeching in our 
supplications the all- seeing God not to lead us into temptation, 
(Matt. vi. 13,) according to what the Lord said, The spirit is 
willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matt. xxvi. 14 ; or Mark xiv. 38.) 

247. The seven last chapters present the same characteristics. 
The eighth chapter, and the two following quote textually, without 
naming the apostle, the First Epistle of Peter, (ii. 24, 22, 17, iv. 
16, 11, 12;) while the eleventh chapter, on the other hand, ex- 
pressly names St Paul, repeating this passage from the First 
Epistle to the Corinthians — "Know ye not that the saints shall 
judge the world V as Paul teaches ; and chapter the twelfth begins 
and goes on with these remarkable words — " I hope that you are 
well exercised in the saceed lettees. As it is said in the 



THE EPISTLE OF POLYCAEP. 



253 



Scriptures, Be ye angry and sin not ; let not the sun go down 
upon your wrath, (Eph. iv. 26.) Pray for all the saints, (Eph. 
vi 18 ;) pray also for kings, and powers, and princes, (1 Tim. iL 
2,) and for them that hate you and persecute you " (Matt. v. 44) 

In truth, when we have read these chapters of Polycarp, in 
which the New Testament abounds and overflows, we ask our- 
selves how the unbelieving criticism of Germany could take so 
much pains to dispute or invalidate the testimony of Justin 
Martyr, which comes fifty-three years later, and how believing 
criticism can take such pains, on the other hand, to defend it. Here 
we see what the New Testament was already in Asia Minor, and 
at Philippi, in Macedonia, four years only after John's death — 
what it was to a martyr, the immediate disciple of that apostle, 
and in the very localities in which he had resided so long ! 

But on this subject we shall mention one word from his thir- 
teenth and last chapter, and shall be able to recognise with ad- 
vantage the care which all the churches took to edify one another 
by the reciprocal communication of the letters they received from 
the servants of God. " You have written to me/' said Polycarp, 
" and Ignatius also has written to me, that if any one should be 
coming (from Smyrna) into Syria, he should bring your letters 
thither, and if I should find opportunity, I will do it myself, or 
send by some other person for you. We have sent to you the 
letters of Ignatius, and others, as many as we have, as you re- 
quested. You will gain much fruit from them, for they embrace 
lessons of faith, and patience, and every kind of edification/' 

Thus the letter of this great servant of the Lord concludes, and 
we love to recall these last traits, because they make us understand 
that if the churches and their bishops already took such pains to 
collect the letters of Ignatius and Polycarp, and if the Philippians 
asked for them as fitted to edify them, with how much more 
vigilant and religious earnestness must these same churches have 
collected and transmitted during fifty years the inspired epistles of 
the Lord's own apostles. We also learn from other historical 
monuments that in some churches they preserved with special 
care the original texts, and we have already cited, in reference to 
this fact, a remarkable expression of Tertullian. 

We now pass on to Ignatius, to his martyrdom, and his letters. 



254 



THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 



Section Fifth, 
ignatius, his martyrdom and letters. 

248. Ignatius was one of the hearers of St John, and, if we 
may believe Chrysostom,! he was placed over the Church at 
Antioch by the Apostle Peter himself. Eusebius, it is true, 
places him after Evodius, (H. E., iii. 22 ;) but the " Apostolic 
Constitutions/' (vii. 46,) indicate rather that these two men of 
God presided simultaneously in Antioch, the one by the appoint- 
ment of Peter over the Jewish Christians, and the other by that of 
Paul over the uncircumcised Christians. 

However that may be, it is certain that Ignatius, having been 
condemned to the wild beasts by the Emperor Trajan, when that 
prince was preparing at Antioch for his first expedition against 
the Armenians and Parthians, was sent to Rome under an escort of 
ten soldiers to undergo that dreadful punishment. On reaching 
Smyrna he had the consolation of being able to visit Polycarp, 
and at last landing at Ostra, he was conducted to Rome, where 
two lions devoured him in the sight of the Roman people. This 
was in the tenth year of Trajan, the year 107. 

249. The "Acts" of this martyr, written and published by 
ocular witnesses (tovtcov avToirrai yevofievoi, ch. vii.,) were edited 
for the first time by Archbishop Usher in 1647. We can recog- 
nise distinctly the New Testament in the second page. When the 
emperor, elated by his triumphs over the Scythians and Dacians, 
beheld Ignatius before his tribunal, he hastened to treat with con- 
tempt the Christian words of the martyr. "You carry, then, 
within you, Him who was crucified ? " — " Yes/' replied Ignatius, 
" FOR it is written, I will divell in them, and I will walk in 
them, (Nal, ykypairrai yap ivot/cycro) iv avrols, kcli i/i7T€pL7ra- 
Tijocu.)" These are the exact Greek expressions in 2 Cor. vi. 16, 
and not those of the LXX. in Leviticus xxvi. 1 2. 

" Yes ! for it is written." These, then, are the words uttered 
in the year 107 before the tribunal of a Roman emperor, within 
four years of the death of St John ! Such is the language, mark 
you, of the most illustrious bishop of the East, when appearing in 

1 Horn, in S. Ignat. Martyr., cap. iv. 



THE LETTERS OF IGNATIUS. 



255 



his own city of Antioch before the renowned conqueror of the 
Scythians and Dacians ! Not only he confesses himself a Christian 
before the whole empire, and at the hazard of his life ; but he 
declares that for Christians everything is decided when they can 
say, " It is weitten ! " This is their rule, and by these words 
their faith is justified, their course is marked out, and every mode 
of death is good to them. On hearing these words, Trajan re- 
plied, "We ordain that Ignatius, who says that he carries about 
the Crucified within him, be chained and conducted by soldiers to 
great Rome, that he may become the food of wild beasts for the 
pleasure of the people, (ftpayiia yevTiao/ievov Orjplwv et? Teptyiv 
rod Srffiov.)" 

We pass on to his letters, all three written some weeks before 
his martyrdom. 

250. Fifteen letters ascribed to this father have been published ; 
but the unanimous opinion of the learned has long since rejected 
eight as evident forgeries. 1 Only a controversy has been carried 
on respecting the Greek text of the seven others, as an edition of 
them has been extant evidently more extended, and suspected of 
numerous interpolations. From the middle of the nineteenth 
century to the present clay, a great number of the most distin- 
guished scholars, Vossius, Usher, Le Clerc, Grabe, Pearson, (and, 
recently, Hefele,) have given the preference to the shorter recen- 
sion. Such was the state of things when, in 184^5, the learned 
Orientalist, Dr Cureton, published a very ancient Syriac version 
of the Epistles of Ignatius, discovered, six years before, by Dr 
Henry Tattam, in an ancient monastery of Upper Egypt. The 
manuscript is of the sixth century ; but the version, most probably, 
is of much greater antiquity. Cureton has published a beautiful 
edition ; in preparing which he made use of another Syriac manu- 
script of the epistles of Ignatius, found by him in the British 
Museum. The whole is accompanied with the Greek text, and 
an English translation. But this collection contains only three 
epistles, — the first, to the Ephesians ; the second, to the Romans ; 
the third, to Polycarp ; and further, it lias been satisfactorily 
ascertained that the extravagant passages on the episcopate, which 
have hitherto presented to impartial readers the appearance of an 

1 Among the rest are two addressed to St John, and one to the Virgin Mary. 



256 



THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 



awkward anachronism, were really interpolations. "We shall, 
therefore, take our quotations only from Dr Cureton's text, and 
content ourselves with saying, with Bunsen, that in the present 
day all critics reject the authenticity of the ancient text, " unless 
some Romanists, among whom/' (he says,) " only Dr Hefele de- 
serves to be mentioned." 1 

These three epistles of Ignatius, after the reductions called for 
by the Syriac text, do not occupy more than ten or eleven pages 
octavo in the Latin text of Hefele. 

251. The Epistle to the Ephesians, although reduced, at most, 
to two pages and a half, yet abounds in allusions to Paul's 
epistles. It begins in the style of the apostolic epistles ; and in 
his salutation we at once recognise (especially in the Greek) most 
distinct reminiscences of the Epistle to the Ephesians, (i. 4, 1 9, iii. 
11, 19, iv. 3,) — " Ignatius to the church which is blessed in the 
greatness and plenitude of the Father, ordained before the ages to 
be always united in permanent, immutable glory, and elected in 
the true passion, by the will of the Father, and of Jesus Christ 
our God, to the church which is at Ephesus, in Asia, be abun- 
dance of joy in Jesus Christ, and in grace." 

This style often reproduces elsewhere expressions peculiar to 
Paul. (Mc/urjrai ovres, Eph. v. 1 ; ehpaloi rfj m-Lorei, Col. i. 23.) 

"Being imitators of God," (he says at the beginning,) "re- 
vivified by the blood of God, you have accomplished the work of 
the brotherhood ; for having heard, since my departure from Syria, 
that I am in bonds for our common hope and name, you have 
been anxious to visit me, who hope to obtain by your prayers 
to combat the beasts at Rome, and to obtain by martyrdom to be 
a true disciple of Him who offered Himself for us to God, an 
oblation and a sacrifice, (tov virep rj/JLtov eavrbv avevey/covro? 
Oew irpoa^opcw /cat Overlap, Eph. v. 2.)" 

252. As to his beautiful and holy Epistle to Polycarp, though 
reduced in like manner to less than two pages and a half, it 
recalls with the same clearness the language of the New Testa- 
ment. " Give yourself to continual prayers" he says to his friend, 
(yrpocrevj(a2<? a^oXa^e ahiaXeiirTois?) expressions familiar to St 
Paul, (1 Cor. vii. 5; Rom. i. 9 ; 1 Thess. v. 17.) "Be prudent 

1 Hippolytus and his Age, vol. i., pp. 58, 59. Vol. iv., Preface. London, 1852. 



THE EPISTLE OF CLEMENT OF EOMR 



257 



as a serpent in all things," he adds, " and simple as a dove, 
(Matt. x. ] 6.) Be temperate as an athlete of God — the prize is 
immortality and eternal life. Exhort my brethren to love their 
companions as the Lord loveth the Church, (Eph. v. 25, 29,) that 
all things may be done for the honour of God, (1 Cor. x. 31.) 
Please Him to whose army you belong, and from whom you will 
receive your pay, apea-Kere a> err par evade." (See 2 Tim. ii. -i.) 

253. Lastly, in his Epistle to the Eomans, the least interpolated 
of the three, we find the same character. " I write to the churches," 
he says. and make them all know that I die voluntarily for God. 
I pray you not to hinder me by an untimely kindness. Eather 
entreat Christ on my behalf, that by these instruments (the wild 
beasts) I may be found a victim. I do not give you commands, 
like Peter or Paul. They are apostles, I am a condemned man ; 
they are free, but I am even now a slave. But if I suffer, I shall 
be a freeman of Jesus, (aireXevOepos ^Irjcrov, 1 Cor. vii. 22,) and 
I shall rise again free in Him. I am bound to ten leopards, by 
which I mean a company of soldiers ; but I learn much from their 
bad treatment ; but for this I am not justified, ov irapa 
tovto SeSiKalcoftai, 1 Cor. iv. 2, 4.) I do not take delight in 
corruptible food, nor in the pleasures of this life. I wish to have 
the bread of God, which is the flesh of Christ, and His blood, 
which is incorruptible love and eternal life." 

But we pass on, in the last place, to the most ancient and 
authentic monument of apostolic antiquity, the inestimable epistle 
of Clement ; and we think it proper to give rather longer quota- 
tions. 

Section Sixth, 
the epistle of clement of eome to the coeinthians. 

254. This beautiful monument, so worthy of the apostolic age, 
forms a splendid close to the chain of historical testimonies which 
connects the days of Ignatius and Irenaeus with those of Paul and 
the other inspired writers. We find in it an abundance of every- 
thing we have a right to expect from a pious writer of the age in 
which the New Testament was completed ; for the author, filled 
with the remembrance of the apostles, of their doctrine, and their 
Epistles, reproduces their expressions of faith, and speaks their 

Ii 



258 



THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 



language. Like them, he quotes most freely the ancient Scrip- 
tures, which they read every Sabbath in all their assemblies. He 
also cites the words of Jesus, as reported by Matthew, Mark, and 
Luke ; but, in citing them, he does not give himself the trouble of 
naming the sacred historians. He often employs, and in their 
strictest sense, the familiar expressions of Paul. With a holy sim- 
plicity, he recalls to the Corinthians the epistle they had received 
from that apostle, fifteen or sixteen years before, and affirms that 
it was written by the Holy Spirit. In a word, you will find this 
epistle such, in all respects, as would be in character with that 
Clement whom Paul, writing from Eome about the year 60, had 
called his " fellow-labourer/' and " whose name/' he said, " was 
written in the book of life/' (Phil. iv. 3.) 

But when, and why was this epistle written? What is its 
authenticity? And how has it come into our possession? On 
these points we must touch before going any further. 

255. This epistle was written by Clement in the name of the 
church at Eome to that of the Corinthians, which some factious 
persons violently agitated against their own pastors. 

Origen, (on John i. 29,) Eusebius, (Hist. Eccl., iii., 15,) Epi- 
phanius, (Haer., xxxvii., 6,) Jerome, (Gatal., xv.,) and others, 
agree in regarding our author as indisputably the same Clement 
of whom the apostle speaks in his Epistle to the Philippians, (iv. 3.) 
And as the Scripture has not named this person elsewhere, and 
Paul, when he visited Philippi, (Acts xvi.,) had with him only 
Silas, Luke, and Timothy, we must suppose that he found Clement 
in this Eoman colony, and that he left him there to carry on his 
evangelical labours, till about the year 60. But was this Clement 
a Eoman, as might be inferred from his Latin name ? or was he 
an Israelite, as Tillemont has conjectured from some expressions 
in the epistles, (our father Jacob, our father Abraham, and 
others) ? 1 We cannot decide. That he was bishop of Eome all 
affirm. But whether he was the first after Peter, as Jerome 
thought, or the second, as Augustin believed, or the third, as 
Irenseus 2 affirms, after all, little concerns us. Eusebius assures 
us that he presided nine years over the church at Eome; but 

1 Hefele, Proleg., p. 20. 

2 Lib. iii., cap. iii. ; and Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., v., 6. 



THE EPISTLE OF CLEMENT OF ROME. 



259 



where are we to place these nine years? According to all ap- 
pearance from 68 to 77 ; for the epistle itself, (chap. L,) by- 
informing us that it was written a little time after a violent per- 
secution, points necessarily to that of Nero, at the time of Paul's 
martyrdon, (from 65 to 68.) That of Domitian, which followed 
in 96, appears much less probable, for many reasons given by 
Grabe, Galland, Wotton, Hefele, and others. In fact, Clement 
(in the fifth chapter) mentions as recent the martyrdom of Paul 
and Peter ; besides, he describes in the sixth chapter this perse- 
cution as cruel from the great number of martyrs, while that of 
Diocletian was more noted for the high rank of its victims ; and, 
lastly, the fortieth and forty-first chapters attest that the epistle 
was written at a time when the temple-worship was still cele- 
brated, and, therefore, necessarily before the year 70, when Jeru- 
salem was destroyed by Titus. 

We say nothing of the career, martyrdom, nor strange miracles 
which the Ptoman Breviary 1 ascribes to Clement. No historian 
has spoken of them — neither Irenseus, nor Eusebius, nor even 
Jerome. 

256. The epistle of Clement, which our Eeformers believed to 
be irreparably and long ago lost, was at first highly honoured for 
five or six centuries by all the ancient fathers. They were de- 
lighted most unanimously to recommend it ; the numerous quota- 
tions they have made from it fully guarantee the authority of the 
edition we possess in the present day ; for we find them in it, word 
for word. Polycarp often speaks as having had it in his hands ; 
Irenseus calls it LKavcoraT^v ; Clement of Alexandria mentions it 
six times ; Origen three times ; and Eusebius calls it " great and 
admirable," (jie<yakr)v re ical Oav^aalav'^) Cyril of Jerusalem cites it 
in like manner ; so does Epiphanius ; Jerome cites it many times, 
and calls it " valde utilem," {Gated. Scrij)., cxv.,) adding, that in 
his time it was the custom in certain places to read it publicly. 
In like manner, Photius 2 in the ninth century. But at a later 
period, and during all the Middle Ages, it had disappeared. 

1 Of November 23. It exiles him to the Crimea — makes him fall into the 
Black Sea with an anchor round his neck — makes the sea retire three miles before 
his corpse, and his body appear on the shore with his anchor, his shrine of stone, 
and his chapel of marble. " Biblioth., cod. cxiii. 



260 



THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 



Scholars, at the revival of letters, as well as the Reformers, had often 
lamented its loss; till at last, in 1628, Cyril Lucar, patriarch of 
Constantinople, having made a present to Charles I. of England, of 
the famous Alexandrian manuscript of the Scriptures, the learned 
world was agreeably surprised to discover this ancient, long-lost 
treasure, written on the last leaves of the manuscript. 1 The Uni- 
versity of Oxford printed 2 it for the first time in 1638. Wotton 
published at Cambridge, in 1718, an edition carefully edited, but 
that of Dr Jacobson, published with learned notes at Oxford 1838 
and 1840, is regarded as superior to all that preceded it. 

When this interesting book reappeared, many critics, such as 
Bignon, Le Clerc, and Mosheim, suspected its integrity ; but in 
our day all serious doubts, Hefele says, have ceased, (Prolog, 
p. xxxiii. ;) and all modern scholars, without exception, are unani- 
mous in acknowledging both the authenticity and integrity of 
this ancient document. 

257. To render intelligible the value of its testimony in favour 
of the canon, no reasoning can avail so much as the simple pro- 
cess of passing a rapid analysis of its contents under the eyes of 
the reader. Its fifty-nine short chapters occupy but thirty-three 
pages and a half in the octavo text of Hefele. 3 

The frank and pious simplicity of this piece, worthy of primi- 
tive times, the elevation and apostolic purity of its doctrine, 4 
distinguish it from all subsequent writings. Wotton, in the 
preface to his edition, says, " It is the style and method of the 
New Testament ; nothing appears in it which is not entirely worthy 
of an apostolic man." " It speaks of doctrines," Grotius 5 has 
remarked, " without subtlety or disguise ; it employs the terms 
vocation and election, called and chosen, in a perfectly Pauline 
sense." And as to its mode of citing the Scriptures, it is equally 
that of the apostles ; that is to say, it takes almost all its quota- 

1 It wants but one leaf, entirely torn out at the end of chap. lvii. by the igno- 
rant awkwardness of the binder. See the note in Hefele, Patr. Apost. Opera, 
p. 135. 2 Or its librarian, Junius. 

3 From forty-one pages of his Greek text, we deduct seven pages and a half 
occupied with notes. 

4 Notwithstanding his belief in the pretended natural phenomenon of the 
phoenix, and one or two expressions which might have been better weighed. 

5 Epist. ad Bignonium. 



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26J 



tions from the Old Testament, and its employment of the scrip- 
tures of the New is much more rare. When it cites the words 
of Jesus Christ, already recorded in the first Gospels, it is with- 
out naming the place ; when it adduces expressly one of Paul's 
epistles, 1 it is as Peter had 2 already done ; and when it cites them 
indirectly, it is often by reproducing entire phrases, but without 
taking the trouble to state whence they are taken. It often in- 
troduces into its language the most characteristic expressions of 
the apostolic writings, expressions which had become familiar to 
the members of the primitive Church, and recognised by every 
one as soon as they were uttered. 

It was very natural that Clement of Borne, writing so soon 
after the death of Paul, should follow entirely the method of the 
apostles ; and his epistle would have been justly suspected if it 
had then made the same copious use of the New Testament which 
was made at a later period, as, for example, by Bishop Polycarp. 
It must not be forgotten, that in the times of his epistle, the 
Church of the New Testament had received only a part of its 
inspired scriptures, and that its canon was not closed till thirty 
years after. The Gospel of Mark, that of John, as well as his two 
last epistles, and that of Jude, were not yet in existence, nor the 
Apocalypse. And even that "epistle of the blessed Paul, (ryv 
iin(TTo\r]v rod fjLafcapiov HcLvkov,)" of which he speaks in his 
forty-seventh chapter, had appeared only fifteen years before, (in 
the year 53.) 

But we shall better judge of the character of his epistle, and its 
quotations, when we have gone through our rapid survey of it. 
258. Chapter, i. The salutation : — 

" The church of God which sojourns at Boine to the church 
of God sojourning at Corinth — to the called, sanctified accord- 
ing to the will of God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, grace 
and peace be multiplied from the omnipotent God through Jesus 
Christ. 

" In consequence of the sudden calamities and accidents that 
have befallen us, beloved, we have been slower in attending to 

1 His First Epistle to the Corinthians. 

2 2 Pet. iii. 15, 16, as we shall see especially in the Epistles to the Romans, 
the Corinthians, and the Hebrews. 



2G2 



THE APOSTOLIC FATHEES. 



your requests, and to that detestable and unholy revolt, so con- 
trary and foreign to the elect of God, which a few rash and bold 
persons have lighted up among you, so that your honourable and 
illustrious name, worthy to be beloved by all men, has been greatly 
dishonoured/' 

Chapter ii. The exemplary conduct of the Corinthians before 
their schism : — 

" Who has remained some time among you without admiring 
your faith, so firm, your piety, so sober, your hospitality, so 
generous, your knowledge of the truth, so perfect and so firm ? 
All things were done by you without respect of persons, (airpoaco- 
TrdXr}iTT(D^.) 1 You were subject to your leaders, and gave due 
honours to the elders (rot? 7rpea(SvTepois) who were among you. 

" You were all of a humble mind, without vain-glory ; disposed 
rather to be subject yourselves than to subject others ; giving more 
willingly than taking away ; satisfied with the supplies furnished 
by God ; and, carefully attending to His words, you preserved them 
in your vitals, and His sufferings were before your eyes, (Gal. iii. 
1.) There was a contest (of prayer) (aycov, Gal. ii. 1,) day and 
night for all the brotherhood, {yirep irdo-Tj? t?}? aBeXcj^or^ro^,) 2 
that the number of the elect might be saved. . . . All sedition 
and all schism were an abomination to you. . . . You were ready 
for every good work" (Titus iii. J.) 

Chapter iii. Their sad state since their divisions : — 

" But your prosperity has produced among you jealousy, envy, 
contention and faction, persecution and anarchy, war and cap- 
tivity." 

Chapter iv. From this source the greatest evils for a long time 
have issued for the people of God : — 

"It was envy and jealousy which paused the death Abel — 
persecuted Joseph — excited Moses — placed Aaron and Miriam 
without the camp, and brought ruin on Dathan and Abiram." . . . 

Chapters v. and vi. ; — " But let us leave these ancient examples 
and come to recent times, contemplating Paul and Peter, and other 
athletw who have combated nearest us, (eVi roix; eyyocrra yevofievovs 

1 He speaks here like Paul and James — James ii. 1-9; Eph. vi. 9; Eom. ii. 11 ; 
Col. iii. 25; Acts x. 34. 

2 An expression peculiar to Peter — 1 Pet. ii. 17, v. 9. 



THE EPISTLE OF CLEMENT OF ROME. 



2GS 



afrknT&s) Let us take the generous examples of our generation, 
(jr)? yeveas rjfiojv.) On account of envy and jealousy (Sid %rfkov 
kcll <$>96vov) the greatest and most righteous pillars (Gal. ii. 9) 
have been persecuted even unto death. Let us place before our 
eyes the good apostles. On account of unjust zeal, Peter endured, 
not one or two, but many labours, and thus, suffering martyrdom, 
he went to the place of glory which was due to him, (iiropevOn 
eh tov 6(j)6L\6fjL€vov tottov tt}? oofg?.) It was through envy, and 
on account of jealousy, too, that Paul sustained the combat and 
obtained the reward of endurance, {yTToixovrj^ f3pa(3elov virea^ev.) 
lie was seven times thrown into bonds, obliged to flee, and was 
stoned, and, having become a herald of the Word in the East and 
the West, he acquired the glorious renown of his faith, taught the 
whole world righteousness ; coming to the boundary (to rip/xa) 
of the West, he suffered martyrdom in the time of the governors, 
(eVt T&v 'Hyov/juevcov.) 1 Thus he was released from the world, 
and went into the holy place, having been the greatest pattern of 
endurance." 

Chapters vii. and viii. Exhortation to repentance : — 
"We mite these things, beloved, not only to exhort you to 
duty, but to remind ourselves, for we are here in the same arena, 
and have the same contest before us. . . . Let us look steadfastly 
on the blood of Christ, and consider how precious to God is His 
blood, which, having been shed for our salvation, proffers the 
grace of repentance to the whole world. Let us go back to all 
generations, and learn that in every generation the Lord has given 
place for repentance (jieTavoias tottov eScotcev 6 8€o-tt6tw<;) to all 
who are willing to turn to Him. Noah preached repentance, 
(i/ajpv^ev fierdvoiav, 2 Pet. ii. 5,) and those who listened to him 
were sajjed/' 

Chapters ix.-xii. The examples of the saints : — 
" Consider Enoch, who, being found just in obedience, tuas 
translated, and his death ivas not found, (Heb. xi. 5.) Noah, 
being found faithful by his ministry, preached regeneration 
(jrdk^/yeveaLav) to the world. Abraham, who was called the 
friend of God, (James ii. 23 ; Heb. xi. 8,) was found faithful, 

1 That is to say, under Tibellinus and Sabinus, who governed during the last 
year of Nero. 



264 



THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 



because lie obeyed the words of God. He believed God, and it 
was counted to him for righteousness, (Eom. iv. 3.) On account 
of his hospitality and piety, Lot was saved from Sodom, (2 Pet. ii. 
6, 7.) Tor her faith and hospitality Kahab the harlot was saved/' 
(Heb. xi. 31.) 

Chapter xiii. Exhortation to humility : — 

"Let us be humble in spirit, (jaireivo^povrjacoiJiev^ 1 my bre- 
thren. Let us lay aside all boasting and conceit, and folly and 
anger, and do what is written ; for the Holy Spirit saith, Let not 
the wise man glory in his wisdom, nor the strong in his strength, 
nor the rich in his wealth ; but let him that glorieth glory in the 
Lord, (Jer. ix. 23 ; 2 Cor. x. 17 ; 1 Cor. i. 31.) Let us, above all, 
remember the words of the Lord Jesus, which He spoke, teaching 
equity and long-suffering ; for He said, (Luke vi. 36-38 ; Matt. vi. 
12-15 ; 1 Cor. i. 31,) Be ye merciful, that ye may have mercy; 
forgive, and it shall be forgiven you; as ye do, so shall it b'e done 
to you ; as you give, so shall it be given to you ; as you judge, so 
shall you be judged; as you are land, so shall kindness be shewn 
to you, (<£>9 xprjcrreveaOe, ovtcos ^pvaTevOrjaerai vjjllv^) with what 
measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." 

Chapters xiv., xv. We must obey God rather than man, and 
join the lovers of peace : — 

" It is just and pious, my brethren, that we should obey God, 
rather than follow the leaders of a detestable schism in pride and 
insubordination. Let us cleave to those who live in peace with 
piety," (rofc ju-er' evaefieias elprjvevovcnv, an expression of Paul, 
Eom. xii. 18 ; 2 Cor. xiii. 11 ; 1 Thess. v. 13.) 

Chapter xvi Christ the pattern of humility * 

" Christ is theirs who think lowly of themselves ; not theirs who 
elevate themselves above His flock. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the 
sceptre of the majesty of God, did not come in the pomp of pride 
and arrogance, however powerful, but in humility, as the Holy 
Spirit spoke concerning Him, for He said, Lord, who hath believed 
our report, &c. . . . And again He said, / am a worm, and no 
man; the reproach of men, and the scorn of the people. Consider, 
then, beloved, what an example He has given to us ! 

1 This is a favourite word with Paul (Acts xx. 19; Eph. iv. 2; Phil. ii. 3; 
Col. ii. 18, 33, iii. 32) and with Peter (1 Pet. v. 5.) 



THE EPISTLE OF CLEMENT OF ROME. 



265 



Chapters xvii., xviii. : — "Let us imitate the humility of Abraham, 
of Jacob, of Moses, of David. 

" Be imitators of them who wandered about in sheep-skins and 
goat-skins, (Heb. xi. 37,) preaching the coming of Christ. We 
speak of Elias, Elisha, and Ezekiel, the prophets, and with them 
those who have obtained a testimony, (teal tovs /jLe/jLaprvprifjievovs,)" 

Let us take notice of this passive expression, frequently used by 
Luke and Paul, (Acts vi. 3, x. 22, xvi. 2; 1 Tim. v. 10; Heb. 
xi. 2, 4, 5, 30.) Thus Abraham received an eminent testimony, 
and was called the friend of God, because he said in his humility, 
" I am but dust and ashes." Thus Job ; thus Moses, who was 
called faithful in all his house, (Num. xii. 7 ; Heb. iii. 2 ;) thus 
David. . . . 

Chapter xix. : — " Let us also seek peace after their example. 

" Receive, then, the instruction of humility and obedience which 
is offered to us by so many great men, to whom the Scriptures 
have given such testimonies ; and let us contemplate the mercy 
and long-suffering of God towards His whole creation." 

Chapter xx Does not the government of the world shew tluit 
God is pleased with harmony and peace? — 

" Consider the heavens, the seasons, the sun and moon, the 
choir of stars, the earth, the ocean, day and night — how all 
creatures are harmoniously submissive to His sovereign will ; and 
let us acknowledge that He is the friend of peace and of good 
order, beneficent towards all, but superabundantly to us who have 
taken refuge in His compassions, through our Lord Jesus Christ." 

Chapters xxi. xxii. Submit yourselves to order in everything 
before God : — ■ 

" Consider how near He is, and none of our thoughts or reason- 
ings are hidden from Him. He is a searcher of the thoughts 
and intentions, (epewnri^ yap eartv ivvoi&v kclI ivOv/JLijaewv, 
Heb. iv. 12.)" 

Chapter xxiii. Be humble and true. Remember that Christ 
will come again : — 

" This is why wo approach to Him with a simple mind. Where- 
fore, let us not be double-minded, fiy Scyjrv^o)/xev, (Sn/n;^o?, a word 
peculiar to James i. 8, iv. 8.) Let that scripture be far from us 
which says, Miserable are the double-minded or the undecided, 



266 



THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 



(ptyvxoi,) whose soul is in doubt, who say, We have heard these 
things even in the times of our fathers, and behold, we are grown 
old, aud none of these things have happened to us." "Clement 
combines here," Wotton remarks, " James and Peter (2 Pet. iii. 3, 
4) in his recollections ; for the Scripture bears this joint testi- 
mony, (avveiTiiiapTvpovar]^ /cat, rrj? ypaffis,) that the Lord will 
come quickly, and will not tarry ! (Heb. x. 37 ;) and the Lord 
will suddenly come to His temple, and the Holy One whom 
ye expect," (Mai. iii. 1.) 

Chapters xxiv.r-xxvii. God teaches us the future resurrection 
continually even in nature : — 

fc Consider, beloved, how the Lord shews us continually the 
future resurrection, of which he has made the Lord Jesus Christ 
the first-fruits, {airapyf}, 1 Cor. xv. 20, 23,) having raised Him 
from the dead. Let us behold the fruits of the earth ; how was 
the sowing effected? The sower went forth, and cast seed into 
the earth, (Luke viii. 5,) and the seed being scattered, those that 
fell dry and naked into the ground are decomposed. The great- 
ness of Divine Providence raises the same, and many are produced 
from one, and bring forth fruit." 

Chapters xxvii.-xxx. Let us rely on Gods promises, and draw 
nigh to Him in sanctity of heart : — 

" He who commands us not to deceive will certainly himself 
not deceive, for nothing is impossible to God, except to speak 
falsehood, (Tit. i. 2 ; Heb. vi. ] 8.) Let us approach, therefore, 
to Him in sanctity of soul, raising pure and undefiled hands to 
Him/' (1 Tim. ii. 18.) 

Chapter xxxi. How shall we obtain the Divine blessing unless, 
like Abraham, by faith? — 

" Let us cleave to His blessing, and let us see what are the ways 
of blessing. On account of what was our Father Abraham blessed ? 
Was it not that by faith he practised righteousness and truth? 
In the same manner Isaac, in confidence, knowing what would 
happen, willingly became a victim. Jacob, with humility, left his 
country on account of his brother, and made himself a slave, and 
the twelve sceptres of Israel were given to him." 

Chapter xxxii. We are justified, not by works, but by faith : — 

"Whoever will meditate on these things with sincerity will 



THE EPISTLE OF CLEMENT OF HOME. 



267 



acknowledge the greatness of the gifts which were bestowed upon 
him ; for from him were all the priests and Levites who were em- 
ployed about the altar of God; from him was our Lord Jesus 
Christ, according to the flesh, (Rom. ix. 5 ;) from him were kings, 
governors, and leaders of the tribe of Judah. But all these ob- 
tained glory and grandeur, not by themselves, nor by their works, 
nor by just dealing, (8LKaio7rpayla<},) which they practised, (279 
/careLpydcravTO,) but by His will, (Rom. iii. 23, v. 2, vii. 18, ix. 11, 
32 ; Tit. iii. 5, 7 ; Eph. ii 9.) And we, being called by His will 
in Christ Jesus, are not justified by ourselves, (James i. 18 ; 
Gal. i. 4; Eph. i. 5, 9, 11,) nor by our own wisdom, or under- 
standing, or piety, or works which we have accomplished in holi- 
ness of heart, but by faith, (Rom. iv. 16, v. 1, iii. 24, i. 16, 17,) 
by which, from the beginning, God the Almighty justifies all 
those whom He has justified. To Him be glory for ever and ever. 
Amen." 

Chapter xxxiii. But we must not neglect love, and good 
works : — 

H What, then, shall we do, brethren ? Shall we cease from 
doing good, and forsake charity? By no means does the Lord 
suffer this ; but we must hasten with earnestness and readiness to 
fulfil every good work. He has created us for this. Let us apply 
ourselves, then, to works of righteousness. Let our glory and 
confidence be in Him, and let us be subject to His will/' 

Chapter xxxiv. Let us live, then, in concord, and pray to- 
gether to God for it : — 

We are led by conscience into a holy concord, and animated 
by one spirit ; let us cry ardently to Him as with one mouth, that 
we may become partakers of His great and glorious promises, 
(2 Pet. i. 4 ;) 1 for he has said, Eye hath not seen, and ear 
hath not heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man, luliat 
things He hath prepared for them that wait for Him." We find 
these words imperfectly in Isaiah lxiv. 3, 4 ; but they are read 
almost literally in 1 Cor. ii. 9. 

Chapter xxxv. The gifts of God are admirable : — 

" How blessed and wonderful, beloved, are the gifts of God ! 
Life in immortality, splendour in righteousness, truth in liberty, 

1 Yet the Greek words of Feter are not identical. 



268 



THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 



faith in confidence, self-government (iyfcpdreta) in sanctity ! And 
all these fall under the cognisance of our understanding. What, 
then, are those things that are prepared for those that wait for 
Him?" 

Chapter xxxvi. All this blessedness is obtained through 
Christ : — 

"This is the way, beloved, in which we find our salvation, 
Jesus Christ, the High Priest of our oblations, {ap-^tepea, Heb. 
iv. 15, viii. 1-3,) the protector and helper of our weakness. By 
Him let us look to the heights of heaven ; by Him let us contem- 
plate, as in a mirror, His pure and sublime countenance ; by Him 
the eyes of our heart have been opened, (fj/ncov ol ocfrOaXfjiol t?}? 
fcap&las, Eph. i. 18 ;) by Him our stupid and darkened mind 
(aavveTOs /ecu ia/corcD^evT] hidvoia f)fjL(hv) has revived into His 
marvellous light, (eh to Oaypbaarov clvtov Eom. i. 21 ; 1 Pet. 
ii. 19;) by Him the Sovereign Lord has willed that we should 
taste immortal knowledge. Being the brightness of his majesty, 
{airavyaapia tt}? /jLeyakcocrvpws avrov, Heb. i. 3, 4,) he is so much 
greater than the angels as he has inherited a more excellent 
name, (Heb. i. 7 ;) for it is written, Who maketh his angels 
spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire ; but concerning his 
Son the Lord said, Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten thee, 
&c. And again he saith to him, Sit at my right hand till I 
make thy enemies thy footstool, (Heb. i. 5, 13.) And who are 
these enemies ? The wicked ; those who set themselves in opposi- 
tion to the will of God." 

Chapter xxxvii. Let us be, then, devoted soldiers of Jesus 
Christ : — 

" Let us fight, brethren, as soldiers of Christ, (2 Tim. ii. 3, 4,) 
with all earnestness, according to His irreproachable orders. Con- 
sider what soldiers are under their generals, — what order, what 
obedience, what submission ! All are not tribunes, nor chiliarchs, 
nor centurions. Each one in his own rank fulfils the commands 
of the king and the generals. The great cannot exist without 
the little, nor the little without the great. All are mixed ; and 
hence their use and their power." .... 

Chapter xxxviii. Let every one among us place himself under 
Christ's orders : — 



THE EPISTLE OF CLEMENT OF ROME. 



269 



" Let every one be subject to his neighbour, {viroraaaeaOa), Eph. 
v. 21 ; I Pet. v. 5,) according to the order in which he has been 
placed by the grace of Christ. Let not the strong neglect the 
weak ; let the weak pay respect to the strong." 

Chapters xxxix.-xlii. We cannot raise ourselves. We must 
submit, therefore, to the order established by God in the Church, 
and consider what it is : — 

" The apostles have proclaimed the gospel to us by the command 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ by the command of 
God. Therefore, having received their orders, and by the resurrec- 
tion of our Lord Jesus Christ being full of assurance, and con- 
firmed in the word of God, (w\ijpo<f)apfj6ivtf; 3 Eom. iv. 21 ; 
7rLarco6evre<;, 2 Tim. iii. 14 — words altogether Pauline,) they went 
forth with full assurance (ir\7jpo(popLa^ } 1 Thess. i. 5) of the Holy 
Spirit, announcing the good news of the coming of the reign of 
God. Preaching the words through regions and cities, they 
ordained their first-fruits, (Kadlaravov Ta? airapya^ avrcov,) hav- 
ing proved them by the Spirit, for bishops and deacons (overseers 
and servants) of those who would hereafter believe." 

Chapter xliii. Moses had contentions of the same kind : — ■ 

" And is it, then, wonderful if those who have been intrusted in 
Christ with such an office by God (eV Xpiarm iriarevOevre^ irapa 
Geov epyov toiovto) should appoint those before mentioned? Do 
we not see the blessed Moses, a faithful servant in all his 
house, (Heb. iii. 5,) set down in the sacred books all that had 
been commanded him ? (Num. xvii.) He acted thus lest sedition 
should arise among the people of Israel on the subject of the 
priesthood, and that the name of the true and only God (rod a\7]0c- 
vov kclL povov Qeov, John xvii. 3) might be glorified ; to whom 
be glory for ever and ever. Amen." 

Chapter xliv. The apostles established bishops and deacons, and 
therefore it is a sin to reject those ivho fill these offices : — 

" The apostles knew by our Lord Jesus Christ that there would 
be contentions on the subject or dignity of the episcopate, (eirl 
tov ovoparos tt}s €7tl<j /C07T?}?.) For this reason, having received 
perfect foreknowledge, they constituted those we have spoken of, 
and then gave this precept, iinvopiijv, (an expression which some 
would translate testamentary order,) that when they had fallen 



270 



THE APOSTOLIC FATHEES. 



asleep, other approved men might receive their ministry, (Siahefjav- 
tcli rr]v Xecrovpylav.) Therefore we think that those who have 
been established by them, or afterwards by other eminent men, 
with the approval of all the Church, (o-vvevSofcrjo-do-r,? t?)? eiac\n- 
crta? 777x0-779,) and Who have served the flock of Christ in humility, 
without reproach, quietly, and liberally, (afiavavam,) having had 
for a long time the testimony of all, — such men, we think, cannot 
be justly ejected from their offices. This would not be on our 
part a light sin. And yet we see that you have removed some 
who acted honourably from an office which they had filled un- 
blamably and with honour." 

Chapter xlv. It is the part of the wicked to persecute and expel 
the just : — 

" Ye are contentious, my brethren, and ye are zealots about 
things which do not pertain to salvation. Tuen youe eegaeds 1 

TO THE SCEIPTUEES, THE TEUE SAYINGS OF THE HOIA SPIEIT. 

There ye will never find the just rejected by holy men. The just 
have suffered persecution, but it was from the wicked ; they have 
been thrown into prison, but it was by the impious." . . . 

Chapter xlvi. Adhere to the just; your dissension is per- 
nicious : — 

" Why should there be among you contentions, wrath, divisions, 
schisms, and war? (James iv. 1.) Have we not one God and one 
Christ, (Eph. iv. 4, 6,) and one Spirit of grace shed upon us, and 
one calling in Christ ? Why should we tear asunder and mangle 
the members of Christ, and forget that we are members one of 
another ? (Eph. iv. 25.) Eemember the words of our Lord Jesus, 
for He said, (Matt. xxvi. 24 ; Luke xvii. 2 ; Mark ix. 42,) Woe to 
that man ! it had been better for him never to have been born, 
than that he should offend one of my elect ; it had been better for 
him to have had a millstone fastened to him, and to be drowned 
in the sea, than to offend one of my little ones. Your schism has 
perverted many ; it has thrown many into dejection, many into 
doubt, and all of us into grief ; and your sedition is still enduring." 

But, above all, hear Clement in his forty-seventh chapter, where 
he says expressly to the Corinthians that their present dissensions 
are worse than those in the time of Paul, fifteen years before. 

1 'EyKU7rrere — probably an allusion to 1 Pet. i. 12, TrapaKvyjrai. 



THE EPISTLE OF CLEMENT OF ROME. 



271 



Chapter xlvii. : — " Take in your hands the epistle of the 
blessed apostle Paul. What did he write to you at first in the 
beginning of the gospel ? Of a truth it was by the Holy Spirit 
that (eV a\r]6eias TrvevfjLariKw) he sent you his letter concerning 
himself, and Cephas, and Apollos, because at that time you were 
forming parties, (7rpoaK\L(7€t<;.) But those rendered you not so 
culpable as you are now • for your partiality had for its objects 
celebrated apostles, (Paul and Cephas,) and a man approved by 
them, (Apollos.) But now, on the contrary, consider who are 
those that pervert you, and who have lessened the high reputation 
of your fraternal love. It is shameful, beloved, and very shameful 
and unworthy of your life in Christ, to hear that the firmly-estab- 
lished and ancient church of the Corinthians, 1 by means of one or 
two persons, is in a state of revolt against its presbyters. And 
this rumour has extended not only to us, but to those who are 
alien from us ; so that through your infatuation blasphemies are 
cast on the name of the Lord, (Rom. xi. 2-i ; 1 Tim. vi. 1,) and 
danger is created for your church." 

Chapter xlviii. Return to brotherly love : — 

" Let us quickly remove this evil. Let us fall before your sove- 
reign Master, and with tears implore His compassion, that He 
would be reconciled to us, and re-establish us in the venerable and 
pure relations of our brotherly love." 

"Is there not some faithful man among you, (James iii. 13,) 
powerful in uttering knowledge, and pure in his actions? Let 
him shew himself more humble in proportion as he seems to be 
greater ; and let him seek the common profit of all, and not his 
own;' (1 Cor. x. 33.) 

Chapter xlix. Follow after charity : — 

"Let him who has charity in Christ observe the precepts of 
Christ. Who can describe the bond of the love of God? Who 
is able to describe the greatness of its beauty? The height to 
which it carries us is inexpressible. Charity unites us to God ; 
charity covers a multitude of sins, (1 Pet. iv. 8 ; 1 Cor. xiii. 4.) 
Charity endures all things ; charity bears all things ; there is 
nothing mean in charity, nothing supercilious. Charity makes no 
schism ; charity is not seditious ; charity does all things in con- 

1 Founded in the year 49. 



272 



THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 



cord. ... In charity all the elect of God are perfected ; apart 
from charity nothing is pleasing to God ; in charity the Lord has 
succoured us ; on account of the charity which He has towards us 
our Lord Jesus Christ gave His blood for us, by the will of God, 
and His flesh for our flesh, and His soul for our souls," (Gal. i. 4 ; 
John iii. 16 ; 1 John iv. 9, 10.) 

Chapter 1. Let us pray for charity : — 

"You see, beloved, how great and wonderful is charity. But 
who is capable of being found in it, excepting those whom God 
renders worthy ? Let us pray, then, and ask of His mercy that 
we may live in charity, without reproach, and free from human 
partiality.'"' 

Chapter li. Let the authors of your dissensions confess their 
sin. 

Chapter lii. Such a confession will be pleasing to God. 
Chapter liii. Recollect the charity of Moses towards his 
people : — 

. . . " great Charity ! perfection never to be surpassed ! The 
servant speaks freely to his Lord, and asks forgiveness for the 
people, or that he himself may be utterly destroyed with them." 

Chapters liv., lv. He who is full of charity will endure any 
loss, that peace may be restored to the Church : — 

"Who, then, among you is generous? who is compassionate? 
who is filled with charity? Let him say — If sedition, strife, and 
schisms have originated with me, I will withdraw ; I will depart 
wherever you wish, and will do whatever is ordered by the people. 
Only let the flock of Christ live in peace with the constituted 
presbyters. He who acts thus will win great glory for himself in 
the Lord, and every place will receive him ; for the earth is the 
Lord's, and the fidness thereof, (1 Cor. x. 26, 28 ; Ps. xxiv. 1.) 
These things they have done, and will do, who act as members of 
the polity of God, never to be repented of/' 

Chapter Ivi. Let us admonish and reprove one another. God 
will protect him who does not refuse correction : — 

" And let us also intercede for those who have fallen into some 
transgression, (Gal. vi. 1, ev tlvi irapairTaiiiarL virap'yovTcov^ that 
moderation and humility may be granted them, that they may 
yield not to us, but to the Divine will." 



THE EPISTLE OF CLEMENT OF ROME. 



273 



" Let us receive, then, this correction, (iraiSetav,) beloved, at 
which no one ought to be angry. For thus the Holy Word says, 
Whom the Lord loveth he correcteth, (irathevei ;) He scourgeth 
every son whom he receiveth," (Heb. xii. 6 ; Prov. iii. 12.) 

Chapter lvii. Let the authors of the sedition submit themselves 
to the elders, lest God destroy them : — 

" You, therefore, who laid the foundation of sedition, submit 
yourselves to the presbyters, (yTrordyrjTe roU ir pea f3vre pots, 1 Pet. 
v. 5,) and be corrected unto repentance, having bent the knees of 
your heart." 

Chapter lviii. May the Lord bless all those who have called 
upon Him ; — 

May God, the all-surveying, the absolute Master of spirits, and the 
Lord of all flesh, who chose the Lord Jesus Christ, and us through 
Him for a peculiar people, (eh Xabv izepiovatov, Titus ii. 14,) give 
to every soul that has called upon His great and glorious name 
faith, fear, peace, endurance, long-suffering, continence, purity, and 
sober-mindedness, by our High Priest and leader Jesus Christ ; 
tJirougJi Him be to Him glory and majesty, power and honour, 
both now and for ever. Amen." 

Chapter lix. May the brethren whom ive have deputed to you 
soon return from Corinth in peace and with joy : — 

" Send them back to us quickly, that they may announce that 
the wished-for concord is restored, and that we may rejoice on 
account of your sound condition. The grace of our Lord Jesus 
Christ be with you, and with all in every place who are called 
by God to Himself ; by whom to Him be glory, honour, power, 
majesty, and an eternal throne for ever and ever. Amen!' 

259. We see, then, that this epistle, in the three points of piety, 
discipline, and doctrine, bears all the characteristics we have a right 
to expect. As to discipline, Clement shews us only two orders of 
officers in the Church — (chap. 42) — bishops (or presbyters) and 
deacons, under the one and sovereign priesthood of Jesus Christ, 
(chap, xxvi.,) all the bishops (or all the presbyters) being appointed 
(KaraaTaOevTes) witli the consent of the whole Church, (chap. 44,) 
and each church being exhorted to walk in peace (elpnveveroi) 
with the constituted elders, (KaOearapLevcdv.) As to piety, it 
was that of the apostolic days, which consisted in being atten- 

B 



274 



THE APOSTOLIC FATHEES. 



tive to the words of God, in living to Jesus Christ, and having 
His sufferings constantly before their eyes. And, lastly, as to 
doctrine, we see ourselves led back to the purest fountains of 
Christianity. None of those errors that at so early a period 
invaded the primitive churches ; no exaltation of the priest, or of 
the Church, or of the sacraments, or of Peter, or of Mary. Christ 
was all — the Alpha and Omega — the beginning and the end. 
Everything was to be received by grace alone, through faith, 
(chap. 32,) conversion, and the forgiveness of sins, (chap. 36,) 
sanctification, and perseverance. To the eternal election of the 
Father everything Was to be referred, the beginning and progress, 
assurance and glory. And yet, in the midst of this primitive 
purity, it might be perceived, as must needs be, that an inspired 
hand no longer held the pen, and that there could not be found, 
as in the New Testament, an infallible and well-weighed selection 
of all the words. Thus, in the twenty-fifth chapter, the author 
receives, as an ascertained fact of natural history, the fable of the 
Phoenix 1 — a harmless error, no doubt — but an error such as is 
not found in the canonical Scriptures. And thus, in chap, v., 
speaking of Peter, he places the faithful in glory before the return 
of Christ and the resurrection, which no inspired book has ever 
done. And thus, by the side of the purest statements of doctrine, 
we shall find, perhaps, one or two expressions less exactly balanced, 
which seem to attribute to human works what the Scriptures do 
not grant them, — expressions, nevertheless, which, when viewed 
more closely, may be explained according to the analogy of faith. 2 
260. Not to make our analysis of this epistle too long, we have 
found it necessary, though with regret, to omit almost entirely its 
continual quotations from the Old Testament. Yet this is one 
of its most striking features ; they abound in it to such a degree 
that we may count more than a hundred in the thirty-three or 
thirty-four pages of the text. This is on an average three quota- 

1 Just as Herodotus reports it, (ii., 73,) and as all antiquity received it, (Tacitus, 
Annales, vi., 23 ; Suetonius, in Tiber., 53.) 

2 As far as actions are opposed to vain words, it may be said, (as in chap, xxx.,) 
egyotg di7toctov{/,svoi xat fcri "koyoic. And again, as far as God is bound to keep 
His promises, it may be said, (as in chap, v.,) s/c rbv bpzi\6 l u.svov roffov rqg 



THE EPISTLE OF CLEMENT OF ROME. 



275 



tions in a page, and some chapters, like the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
present a continued succession of them. Clement, like the apostle 
Paul, paraphrases the passages he quotes, to make the purpose for 
which he adduces them more intelligible. 

But, after all, the question for us does not lie here, and we 
must set aside for the moment this apostolic trait to examine 
only the following inquiry : — What conclusion is to be drawn 
from this epistle as to the canonicity of those portions of the New 
Testament which were already in circulation at the time of its 
appearance in the year 68 ? For we must not forget that at this 
period the canon had been forming for nineteen years, and was 
forming for thirty years more, till the year 98, when the Apoca- 
lypse appeared. The first epistle written by Paul had appeared 
about the year 49 ; Nero, fifteen years after, had burnt Koine, and 
put the Christians to death. He was not killed till June 9th, in 
G8, after having beheaded the apostle Paul ; and, two years later, 
Jerusalem was burnt by Titus, 5th August, 70. But we know 
the epistle of Clement preceded that catastrophe. 

It is proper, then, that we should consider more closely the 
testimony given by this epistle to the Holy Scriptures already 
published in the year 70. 

261. (1.) And, first of all, we see at this period the canon so 
received in the churches of Greece and Italy, that the first pastor 
of the great city of Rome, writing in the name of his church 
* to the very important and very ancient church of Corinth, (777 
fiePaioTarr] kcli ap-^ala,)" reminds it with authority of the first of 
the epistles it had received from St Paul fifteen years before, 
(chap, xlvii.) 

(2.) In the second . place, it must be carefully observed that, 
when Clement quotes it, it is not as an ordinary letter ; it is, as he 
says himself, as a scripture "truly inspired, (eV aXrjOei'as irvev- 
fjLCLTiKQ)^ eTrearecXeu.) " 

(3.) This first testimony of Clement, if it were the only one, 
would be evidence that already at that period the church of 
Corinth acknowledged Paul's epistles as divine. We could say, 
as Peter had done, (2 Pet. iii. 15,) that this church acknowledged 
all the epistles (iv Trdcrais raU iiricrToXaU) which Paid had 
written, according to the icisdom given unto him; for no reason 



276 



THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 



exists for giving this First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians any 
superiority over the rest, and it is very clear that Clement named 
that specifically to them because it treated of other dissensions 
which had agitated them fifteen years before ; and if he named the 
first rather than the second, it was because the latter said not a 
word about them. Let it be recollected that we have seen 
Polycarp writing to the Philippians, and naming none of all Paul's 
epistles excepting his Epistle to the Philippians. 

(4.) No one can question that Clement, bishop of Eome, writing 
from Rome in the name of the church of Eome, knew the Epistle 
of Paul to the Romans quite as well as the Epistle of Paul to the 
Corinthians. Besides, without naming it, Clement makes frequent 
allusions to it, (as may be seen in our analysis,) particularly in the 
thirty-second, thirty-fifth, and forty-seventh chapters. Thus, also, 
without naming the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, he mani- 
festly quotes it several times, on other occasions and on other 
subjects. We have indicated above a good many of these remi- 
niscences ; they are very clearly pointed out. Especially we may 
refer to his beautiful chapter (the thirty-ninth) on charity. 

(5.) We hear in the same manner in this epistle numerous cita- 
tions of the words of Jesus Christ, taken from Matthew and Luke, 
without the author's being at the pains to indicate which of the 
evangelists supplied him with them. Such was the usage of the times. 

(6.) We find, also, allusions, sufficiently marked, to many of 
Paul's other epistles, and to the two epistles of Peter, and we hear 
him reproducing passages from them which must have been easily 
recognised by contemporary churches. 

(7.) But still more remarkable are his numerous and clear 
quotations from the Epistle to the Hebrews. Nor is he at the 
pains to tell us from what source he has drawn them ; but he re- 
produces almost entirely (in chap, xxxvi.) the thirteen first verses 
on the divinity of Jesus Christ. He cites, like the apostle, the 
examples of Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Rahab, and those who 
"announced the coming of Christ, clothed in sheep-skins and 
goat-skins" In a word, the passages borrowed from this epistle 
occur at least fifteen or sixteen times in his text, and his citations 
are so exact that no one can attempt to dispute the source. It 
would be useless to repeat them here. 



THE EPISTLE OF CLEMENT OF ROME. 



277 



262. (8.) It is quite in vain to object, as some persons have 
attempted, to the frequently paraphrastic language of Clement, 
as if his citations from Paul, and Peter, and the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, and the Gospels were too little characteristic to autho- 
rise our proof in favour of the canon. It must be rather said, 
that this very liberty, with which at every turn he embodies in his 
discourse the sentences of the New Testament, attests with what 
fulness the contents of the sacred books occupied contemporary 
minds, so that a minister was certain, by suitably quoting a few 
words, to awaken in all pious persons their recollections of the 
written word. This mode of proceeding is, then, on the contrary, 
a proof to us of the existence of the canon, and the powerful 
effects of the anagnosis or public reading of the Scriptures. If, 
in the present day, I introduced into a religious discourse some 
expressions borrowed from chapters of the Bible best known in 
all ages — if I spoke of Him who " gives us our daily bread ; " of 
" the mighty and jealous God, who visits the iniquity of the 
fathers on the children ; " of the Saviour " wounded for our 
transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities " — I should abstain 
from mentioning the book from which I took these expressions 
as mere pedantry. 

But we have also more general inferences to deduce from the 
united testimony of all these apostolic fathers. 

Section Seventh, 
inference from the testimony of the apostolic fathers. 

263. We have heard all these fathers. They have come in 
their turn to confirm our canon, each in his own style ; and their 
testimony for the confirmation of our faith has always been found 
to be in harmony with the circumstances of the age. We might 
not be able to construct on the language of each of them the 
entire doctrine of the canon, and the proof of this, in its fulness, 
must be sought for elsewhere. But we can irresistibly infer that 
these documents evidently attest the existence of the first canon — 
that they call to mind the greater part of our sacred books — that 
they proclaim their inspiration — that they demonstrate the sub- 
mission that was paid to them in all the churches of God. 



278 



THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 



Still another monument, very similar to that of Clement in 
form and date, remains to be consulted. It differs only on one 
point — that it is inspired. We refer to the testimonies rendered 
to the canon, while in process of formation, by the apostles 
themselves, in some of their more recent writings. 



CHAPTER XL 



THE LATER "WRITINGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT ATTEST THE 
EXISTENCE OF A CANON ALREADY BEGUN. 

264. In the same manner as Clement cited, in 68, either our 
Lord's discourses, as reported in the Gospels of Matthew and 
Luke, or Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians, or the words of several 
other epistles of this apostle, and the Epistle of Peter ; so Paul 
himself, in his first Epistle to Timothy, (v. 18,) appears to cite, but 
without naming it, and after the manner of the fathers, the Gospel 
of St Luke, when he repeats this sentence, which is only found in 
that evangelist, (x. 7,) " the workman is worthy of his hire/' 

Thus, also, the same apostle appears to us to have clearly 
pointed to the earlier writings of the New Testament by the name 
of "prophetic scriptures/' (ypa(f>ojv 7rpo(f)r]TLKcov,) (that is to say, 
according to his style, inspired scriptures^) when he spoke in his 
Epistle to the Romans (xvi. 25, 26) of the writings by which " the 
mystery of Jesus Christ was then (vvv) made known to all 
nations." In fact, one-tenth, at least, of the books of the canon 
were already in existence, — two Gospels, two Epistles to the Thes- 
salonians, two to the Corinthians, the Epistle to the Galatians, 
probably, also, the Epistle to Titus, besides the first to Timothy, 
and the first of Peter ; and it was probably while thinking of 
these scriptures, already spread through all the churches, that 
Paul, on the point of visiting Jerusalem for the last time, wrote 
to the Romans, that "the gospel and the preaching of Jesus 
Christ, the mystery which ivas kept secret since the world began, 
was now made manifest, and by the prophetic scriptures, ac- 
cording to the commandment of the everlasting God; and that it 
was made known to all nations for the obedience of faith.'' 



280 THE LATER WRITINGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

It has been attempted to dispute the meaning of the words 
" prophetic scriptures," as if we must recognise in them a refer- 
ence to the Old Testament only. But, not to say that this would 
be giving a very frigid and improbable sense to the phrase, Paul 
here declares that it was by these scriptures that the mystery of 
Jesus Christ was now (vvv) made known to all nations ; and he 
has elsewhere often stated that the apostles were prophets, and 
their writings (consequently) prophetic writings. We think, then, 
the sense we have given to the words is the most natural and 
most conformable to the style of the apostle. 

265. Moreover, no one will dispute the meaning of Peter's 
words in his epistle, much later than that of Paul to the Romans, 
which he wrote after Jesus Christ had "shewed him" that the 
time of his departure was at hand, (2 Pet. i. 14.) He there 
recommends all the epistles of Paul, (iii. 15,) and declares that 
the "unlearned and unstable wrest them, as they do also the 
other scriptures, to their own destruction." 

We see, then, already, about the year 64, or at the latest about 
the year 68, thirty or thirty-four years only after our Lord's 
crucifixion, all the epistles of Paul placed by an apostle in the rank 
of the other scriptures, (tcz? Xot7ra? ypacfras !) 

This phrase, the scriptures, occurs fifty times in the New 
Testament, and fifty times it is applied exclusively to the books 
of the two Testaments. Thus, then, the canon was already pro- 
claimed by an apostle, and solemnly recommended to believers of 
the first century ; we see it mentioned as a book already occupying 
the same place as the Old Testament. 

And we wish it to be noted, that the argument does not here 
depend on the inspiration of this epistle of Peter ; if we only take 
it up as one of the witnesses left to us of the first century, its 
testimony assures us at once of the existence of a canon among 
the Christians of those ancient times, and of the assimilation 
made by them of the inspired scriptures of the prophets of the 
New Testament to the inspired scriptures of the prophets of the 
Old. 

266. But this is not all. This Second Epistle of Peter is itself 
directly and verbally cited in another epistle still later, that of 
the apostle Jude. 



THE EPISTLE OF JUDE. 



281 



Eead attentively the seventeenth verse — " But, beloved, remember 
ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord 
Jesus Christ!' And what did they say, these apostles of Jesus 
Christ ? " How that they told you," continues Jude, " that there 
should be mockers {lym alter at) at the last time, (icr^aro),) who 
should walk (jropevofjievoL,) after their own ungodly lusts, (/cara 
ra? eavrcov kiriQv\xia^ tcjv aaefieLoov.y And where do we find one 
of the apostles of our Lord uttering these words ? We find them 
only in the Second Epistle of Peter ; but we find them there to 
the very letter. There are the same expressions, " according to 
their oiun lusts," (Kara ra? eVt#o/zia? avrcov, 2 Pet. iii. 3,) " walk- 
ing" (7ropev6/jLevoi.) and, above all, the remarkable term, scoffers, 
or mockers, (e/jLTralfCTaL,) which is not to be met with in any other 
part of the New Testament. 

" Knowing this first," said Peter, (< that there shall come in the 
last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts!' (iii. 3.) 

But this Epistle of Jude was declared to be inspired from the 
second century — in the East, by Clement of Alexandria; in the 
West, by Tertullian, the most ancient of the Latin fathers ; in the 
third century, by Origen, and by the majority of the ancient 
fathers mentioned by Eusebius. And it will be recollected that 
we have found it equally in each of the eleven catalogues of 
the New Testament transmitted to us by the fourth century, 
(Propp., 56, 57.) 

Thus, then, the epistle of the apostle Jude, already acknow- 
ledged in the second century, cites the Second Epistle of Peter as 
a scripture, of which the Church ought reverently to recall the 
words, ("remember,") and as a scripture of the apostles of our 
Lord Jesus Christ. And we have just seen that, in its turn, this 
Second Epistle of Peter, before the year 64, named all the epistles 
of Paul as occupying the same ranks as the other scriptures, (t^?, 
\oL7ras ypa<f>a<;.) 

267. We believe that we have now said enough to establish 
fully, by the light of history, the incomparable authenticity of the 
twenty books which form the first canon of the New Testament, 
and about which the churches never felt the least hesitation. We 
pass on to the seven others, and begin with the second-first canon. 



BOOK III 

THE SECOND-FIRST CANON. 



2G8. The greater part of the proofs which, in the foregoing 
pages, have established on so powerful an assemblage of facts the 
authenticity of the twenty-first homologoumena, argue equally in 
favour of the twenty-first and the twenty-second, the Epistle to 
the Hebrews and the Apocalypse. 

Above all, these two books have in their favour that great proof 
which surpasses all others, — the wonderful unanimity of all the 
churches during the two first centuries, setting out from the days of 
the apostles. We cannot cite from the literary history of all ages, 
as we have said, a single example of a legitimacy so powerfully 
demonstrated, or even one which makes a distant approach to it. 

Having been admitted without opposition, from their first 
appearance, both in the East and West, they have a right, on this 
ground, to take their place in the first canon. But we have 
thought it more convenient not to class them with either the first 
or the second, and to reserve them a place apart ; because, though 
they never ceased to be received, the one in the East, and the other 
in the West, yet, since the beginning of the third century, they 
were disputed for rather a long time, the one in the West, the 
other in the East. 

But we must treat them with more exactness, and begin with 
the Apocalypse. 



CHAPTER I. 



the apocalypse. 

Section First, 
its fiest reception. 

269. Of all the writings of the New Testament, the Apocalypse 
is found to be the most frequently and most powerfully attested 
in the monuments of the primitive Church. None of them has 
been commented upon and cited more frequently, from its first 
appearance. And it was not without irrefragable reasons that 
Eusebius ranked it among the homologoumena, while yet making 
exceptions, and allowing his mind to entertain the strong re- 
pugnance which existed in his age to the millenarian doctrine. 

270. In fact, if, as Olshausen 1 has said, and Kirchhofer2 has 
repeated after him, there can hardly be found in the New Testa- 
ment a book which has in its favour a more numerous and 
powerful array of historical testimonies; yet the Apocalypse is, 
notwithstanding, the book against which, in later times, on account 
of its mysteries and prophecies, the opponents of the canon and of 
inspiration are most passionately adverse. In the third and fourth 
centuries, its misunderstood doctrine of a millennium roused opposi- 
tion to it ; but the principal cause in our day, especially in Ger- 
many, has been its incontestable claims to the most absolute in- 
spiration. This wholly prophetic, that is to say, wholly inspired 

1 Authenticity of the New Testament, ch. x. 

2 " Scarcely any book of the New Testament," says Kirchhofer, (Quellensamml., 
p. 296,) " has such a striking abundance of historical testimonies on its behalf." 



THE APOCALYPSE. 



285 



writing, can never cease to be rejected by the enemies of the 
Divine inspiration of the New Testament. 

271. But it will be necessary, before proceeding further, care- 
fully to notice the nature of the objections which its first detractors 
raised in the third and fourth centuries. When, after having been 
so long received by the universality of churches, the Apocalypse 
began, in the third century, to find some timid cavillers, and later, 
in the fourth, when its adversaries became more decided and nu- 
merous, none of them ever dreamt of attacking it by historical 
arguments; for on that side it was as perfectly impregnable as the 
four Gospels. Exceptions were taken to its contents; to its style, 
which, it was pretended, was not that of John ; and to its title, 
where the author, it was said, while assuming the name of John, 
did not give himself the title of apostle ; and yet the true St 
John, in his Gospel, 1 and in his First Epistle, (ii. 2,) had, with 
sufficient clearness, revealed himself as an apostle. Who, then, 
can assure us that the John of the Apocalypse was indeed the son 
of Zebedee, and not some unknown writer of the same name? 
Such, in the third century, were the only objections of opponents. 
And when Eusebius, in his turn, in 324, expressed his own, he 
alleged, Michaelis tells us, " no historic motive whatever. He did 
not say this book was not received by the ancients ; it has been 
rejected from the time when it first appeared ; it was introduced 
at such or such a time ; no one spoke of it during John's life- 
time ; it was not preserved among the seven churches of Asia." 
By no means ; none of these objections was then possible ; and 
no one thought of advancing them, in spite of all the intense feel- 
ing with which many strove to get rid of millenarian doctrines. 
Certainly this consideration forms an historic argument of the 
greatest force in favour of its authenticity. 

272. Moreover, when Eusebius sought in the Christian Church 
for writers who were decided against the Apocalypse, lie could not 
find any, setting out from the days of the apostles, till the third 
century. There was first of all Caius, a presbyter of Rome, whose 
testimony has nothing decided in it ; and there is Dionysius, bishop 
of Alexandria, and who even acknowledged the canonicity and the 
inspiration of the book, but only called in question its apostolicity ; 

1 John xxi. 21, xix. 25, 2C>, and cl.scwhcre. 



286 



THE SECOND-FIRST CANON. 



and certain persons in Egypt, who pretended to attribute it to 
Cerinthus the heretic, as had been done (out of the Church) by 
the heretical sect of the Alogi, who, from their antipathy to the 
name of Logos, (the Word,) given to Jesus Christ, rejected the 
Gospel of John as well as his Apocalypse. 

But a long time before these first isolated voices had made 
themselves heard, the unanimous testimony of the churches during 
the whole course of the preceding century had continued to be 
uttered in favour of this book in all the countries of the East and 
West ; a great number of eminent writers had never ceased to 
recommend it to the regard of the churches by commentaries and 
innumerable quotations ; Justin Martyr in Asia ; the church of 
Lyons in Gaul ; Irenseus the martyr, in the same city, to which 
he came after he had long sojourned in Asia, in the country of 
Ephesus, from which the Apocalypse was issued ; Theophilus in 
Antioch of Syria ; Apollonius in Italy, where he suffered martyr- 
dom ; Melito in Asia Minor ; Clement of Alexandria, in Egypt ; 
and Tertullian in Africa. 

And later still, even after the opposition of Caius and Dionysius 
had reached Egypt, what effect did they produce on their age ? 
A very slight effect certainly ; for the great voice of the churches 
continued at the same time its testimony by the mouth of the 
teachers and martyrs — Hippolytus of Aden, astronomer, theologian, 
and martyr, in Italy; the great Origen in Asia; Cyprian in Africa; 
Vlctorinus at Pettaw, in Pannonia ; Methodius, bishop of Tyre, 
also a martyr ; Arnobius of Numidia ; Lactantius in Gaul, that 
eloquent African, who was the tutor of the son of the Emperor 
Constantine. And not only was the Apocalypse recommended by 
all who were most eminent in the Church, but even schismatics, 
the Novatians and Donatists, expressed the same regard for it as 
the orthodox theologians. 

And still later, in the East, at the beginning of the fourth 
century, at the very time when Eusebius, Cyril of Jerusalem, and 
Gregory of Nazianzus, appeared unwilling to put the Apocalypse, 
without hesitation, in the canon of the homologoumena, the great 
Athanasius felt no scruples ; and in other parts of the East might 
be heard Basil, Epiphanius, Cyril of Alexandria among the 
Greeks ; St Ephrem among the Syrians ; and in the West and in 



THE DATE OF THE APOCALYPSE. 



287 



Africa, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustin among the Latins, speak- 
ing of this book with the same reverence. 

But before we pass under review these various testimonies, and 
notice also the Council of Laodicea, it will be convenient to fix 
the date of the first appearance of the Apocalypse. 

Section Second, 
the date of the apocalypse. 

273. The exact age of the Apocalypse has been given us by 
Irenseus, the most reliable of witnesses, since of all those we have 
named none lived nearer the time nor nearer the place where the 
prophet wrote his revelations, and finished his career. 1 

Irenseus, the friend and disciple of Polycarp and Papias, them- 
selves friends or disciples of John, was born in the early part of 
the second century, in the neighbourhood of Ephesus or Smyrna, 
that is to say, in that province of the seven churches of Asia 
where John, Polycarp says, 2 was burned. His birth must have 
been only a few years after the death of the apostle, who, accord- 
ing to Eusebius, lived to the days of Trajan, and, according to 
Jerome, 3 to the sixty-eighth year after our Lord's death, that is 
to say, the year 102, or the fith year of the reign of Trajan. 

The following are the exact words of Irenseus : 4 — " Nor was 
the Apocalypse seen long ago, (avBe jap irpb iroXkov %pbvov 
icopdOr),) but almost within our generation, towards the end of 
the reign of Domitian, (aXXa cr^eSbv eVl t?}? rjfJLeTepas tyeveas, 
7T/30? to. re\€L T779 AofjLenavov upx*! 1 ?-)" 

This explicit statement receives confirmation from independent 
witnesses in the same century. 

Clement of Alexandria 5 attests that John returned from Patmos 
to Ephesus after the death of the tyrant, (rod rvpdvvov reXeu- 
TrjaavTos) Tertullian 6 speaks of Domitian as having " banished 
the Christians ; " and of John as having " been plunged into 

1 Grabe, Prolog, in Ircnrcum. 2 Eusebius, Hist. EcoL, v., 24, iii., 25. 

3 In his work, De Yiris Ulustribus. See Lardner, vol. x., p. 100. 

4 Iren., Adv. Haeres., v., 30; Eusebius, Hist. EocL, iii., 18. In chap, xxviii., 
the same Iremcus attributes the Apocalypse to the apostle John. See also four 
chapters further on, sec. iv., 50. 

Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., iii., 23. 6 Apologetious, v. 



288 



THE SECOND-FIRST CANON. 



boiling oil, without injury, and banished to an island." 1 Origen, 
about the year 230, tells us, in his commentary on Matthew, 
" that a Roman emperor, as tradition teaches, (<w? rj 7rapd8ocn<; 
SiSdo-fceL,) banished John to the isle of Patmos ; and that John 
bore witness to the fact without naming the emperor." Victor- 
inus, bishop of Pettaw, and martyr in 290, asserts repeatedly that 
John was banished to Patmos " by Domitian." Lastly, Eusebius 
(Hist. Eccl., iii., 18) repeats the same account at the beginning of 
the fourth century ; likewise the treatise Be Duodecim Apostolis, 
(attributed to Hippolytus,) and the apocryphal narrative of Pro- 
chorus in the third century ; so also Jerome in the fourth, and 
Orosius in the fifth, Arethus and Primasius in the sixth, and 
Isidore of Seville in the seventh century. 

All Christian antiquity attests that John died full of years in 
the province of Asia. 

Epiphanius alone, about the end of the fourth century, has 
advanced (if we are to believe his text as it stands) the absurd 
account that John prophesied in Patmos during the reign of 
Claudius. But we have reason to suspect here an error of the 
copyist, since, otherwise, Lardner says, the same Epiphanius makes 
John more than 90 years old when he returned to Patmos. Can 
it be imagined that he was of such an age in the year 54, when 
the Emperor Claudius died, since that would make him 70 when 
he was first called, and 139 on the day of his death? The fathers 
agree in placing the latter event in the year 103. 

274. Many writers in Germany and America, 2 attached to 
certain systems of prophetic interpretation, have made great efforts 
to get rid of all these historical testimonies, and to fix the publica- 
tion of the Apocalypse fifty years earlier, in the days of Nero. 
With this view they have argued — 

(1.) That the apostolic epistles were written after the Apo- 
calypse. 

(2.) That the Neronic persecution of the Christians, after the 

1 De Praesc. Haeret., 36. " Posteaquam in oleum igneum demersus nihil passus 
est, in insulam relegatur." 

2 Dr Tilloch, Moses Stuart, Burgh, Professor Lee, Professor Liicke, and Guer- 
icke. The learned Lardner had before victoriously refuted the arguments by 
which Sir Isaac Newton had wished, in favour of his interpretations, to establish 
the Neronian date. 



THE DATE OF THE APOCALYPSE. 



289 



burning of Eome, extended to Asia, which no historian has ever 
asserted. 

(3.) That the punishment of banishing to the islands was em- 
ployed already, as in the time of Domitian, a supposition equally 
gratuitous. 

(4.) That the city of Laodicea, where the seventh of the churches 
to which Jesus Christ addressed His apostolic epistles existed, and 
which was overthrown in 61, with Colossae and Hierapolis, by an 
earthquake, had been almost immediately rebuilt under the reign 
of Nero ; while it appears, according to history, that almost half a 
century elapsed before the restoration of these cities. 

(5.) That the passage in Irenaeus on the date of the Apocalypse 
is either misunderstood, or mistranslated, or erroneous. 

(6.) That all the other writers who report the same fact have 
copied this father, though the details of their respective testimonies 
attest their independence. 

(7.) That the alleged passage from Origen expresses some doubt 
on his part as to which of the Eoman emperors banished the 
apostle to Patmos, though the only object of Origen in this passage 
was to point out the moderation of John, in speaking of the per- 
secution without naming the persecutor. 

(8.) Lastly, (and this last attempt is made by Guericke,) that 
the perplexing passage in Irenseus indicates the Emperor Nero 
rather than Domitian, as the persecutor of John, because the 
word Aofieriavov, instead of being the genitive of the proper 
name Domitianus, may be simply the genitive feminine of an 
adjective qualifying the word ap-xf)? which follows it, and formed, 
from Domitius, one of the proper names of Domitius Nero ; so 
that, instead of translating the clause, "towards the end of the 
reign of Domitianus," it must be read, "towards the end of the 
Domitian or Keronian reign." And for this two reasons are 
given : — First, because if the word Ao^enavov had been a proper 
name, it would have been preceded by the article rov ; and next, 
because the adjective formed from AofAertavos would rather have 
been AufierLavLKos- But these suppositions are without validity ; 
for (1.) The Greeks never suspected this extraordinary sense; 
(2.) The employment of the name Domitius, by itself, to designate 
Nero, was not in use ; (3.) So far from the article rov being neces- 

T 



290 



THE SECOND-FIRST CANON. 



sary in this passage before Ao^eriavov, we shall find in the same 
chapter of Eusebius from which it is taken as many as three other 
proper names without the article ; 1 (4) Because, even supposing 
Aofiertavov to be taken as an adjective, it is against all reason to 
derive it from Domitius, rather than from Domitianus. We have 
a double proof in the monuments of history, since, on the one 
hand, we read in Suetonius, " Domitia gens,'" and not Domitiana, 
to designate the family of Domitius Nero ; and on the other, in 
Statius, 2 " Viam Domitianam miratus sum," and not Domitiani- 
cam, to designate a Eoman road constructed by Domitian.3 

The Apocalypse, then, did not appear till after the year 96, in 
which Domitian died, on the 18th of September, and when John 
was able at last, like many others, to come forth from his captivity. 

Section Third, 
the apocalypse in the first century. 

275. As the Apocalypse could not appear sooner than in the 
three last years of the first century, we shall not be able to find 
testimonies to it earlier than the beginning of the second. 

Consequently, we can understand that it could not be noticed 
in the epistle of Clement, which was written thirty years before the 
Apocalypse, (Prop. 255,) nor be contained in the Peshito version, 
also published before this sacred book, and during one of the 
thirty-five last years of the first century, (Prop. 32.) 

The Peshito was composed for the use of the numerous Chris- 
tians of Jerusalem, Judea, Syria, Chaldea, and Adiabene, who 
spoke the same language as Jesus Christ, and who for a long time 
formed the majority of the primitive Church, since in the city of 
Jerusalem alone they amounted, about the middle of the first 

1 Middleton, in his excellent work on " The Use of the Definite Article in the 
New Testament," has established, that the rule of the double article among the 
Greeks does not apply to proper names. 

2 Sylvae, lib. iv., and the third ode, entitled, Via Domitiana. 

3 More than this, Cicero might be cited, {pro Fonteio,) who calls a road opened 
by the Proconsul Domitius, Via Domitia. Caesar, it is true, (B. C, i., 16, 22,) 
calls the partisans of Domitius, Domitiani, but this termination is the Latin form 
applied to men of a party. It is thus that Servius calls the orations in which 
Cicero is lavish in the praises of Caesar, Ccesarianae Orationes. 



TESTIMONIES TO THE APOCALYPSE. 



291 



century, (in 54,) to many myriads, (Acts xxi. 20,) and according 
to the testimonies of history, they abounded at a very early period 
in the countries we have just named. This version, which contains, 
besides the twenty books of the first canon, the Epistle of James 
and the Epistle to the Hebrews, both necessarily written before 
the year 64, could not contain the Apocalypse, which was not 
composed till long after. But the Syrian church, which extended 
its vigorous branches to the farthest bounds of the East, very soon 
received it, either by placing it at the end of the ancient version, 
or adopting it in some more recent version. We have the proof 
of this (1.) From the fact that the Apocalypse was received and 
commented upon by the most eminent of the Syriac teachers, the 
illustrious St Ephrem, born at Nisibis, in Mesopotamia, about 
the year 320 ; and (2.) By this other fact, that the Nestorian 
branch carried the Apocalypse to China. We know, indeed, that 
the ancient monument discovered in 1629 by the Jesuit mission- 
aries at Sanxuen, in the province of Xensi, and going back to the 
year 781, presented two inscriptions, one in Chinese, and the other 
in Syriac, in which the New Testament was mentioned as con- 
taining twenty- seven books, "which attests sufficiently," says 
Michaelis, " that the Apocalypse made a part of it." 1 

Dr Thiersch 2 is convinced of it after the researches of Hug. 3 



Section Fourth, 
testimonies in the first half of the second century. 

276. The very few works of this period that have reached us 
bear testimony to the Apocalypse. 

Whoever might be the unknown author of the allegorical book 
called The Shepherd, which appeared about the middle of the second 

1 Michaelis, vol. vi., ch. xxxiii., p. 495, edit. Marsh. See Hug's Einleitung, 
p. 65, (ed. 1808.) 

2 Versuch zur Herstellung dos Hist. Standpuncts, ch. vi. And Kirchhofer, 
(p. 16,) speaking of what the Pe.shito contained, says, " and (according to Hug's 
judgment) the Apocalypse." 

3 Hug's opinion is founded on the passages of Ephrem reported below, (Prop. 
2S6.) Yet Zozomen (H. E., Hi., 16) and Theodoret (H. B., iv., 29) say that Ephrem 
did not know Greek; and Ephrem himself, speaking of a visit he made to Basil, 
says that he needed an interpreter, (Ephr., Opera, iii., 712, edit. Vossii, 1603.) 



292 



THE SECOND-FIKST CANON. 



century, and who is believed to have been a brother 1 of Pius I, 
his work presents such manifest allusions to the Apocalypse, that 
it may be cited as one of the witnesses of the existence of the book 
among the churches. He often speaks of a "great tribulation," 
(ii. 2.,) already known to Christians as speedily coming ; he calls 
it, as John does, "the great tribulation," (Apoc. vii. 14.) His 
great beast, the four colours of its head, the locusts issuing from 
its mouth ; the tower which, he says, is " the woman;" the Church, 
which has crowns of palms and white vestments ; " the seal, on 
which is the name of the Son of God/' &c. ; — all these traits 
oblige us to recognise a mind familiar with the imagery of the 
Apocalypse. 

But we pass on to Ignatius. This bishop, a companion of the 
ajDOstles, suffered martyrdom in the year 107, that is to say, at 
the most, ten years after the appearance of the Apocalypse. Can 
we find in his three authentic epistles any traces of the Revelation 
of St John? It can scarcely be expected in epistles where he 
does not cite the books of the New Testament, except by allusions, 
and expressly names only the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians ; 
for he wrote them in the company of the rough soldiers who 
hurried his journey to Borne for his capital punishment. And 
yet we find more than one passage in which we may detect re- 
miniscences of our sacred book. Thus, for example, in his Epistle 
to the Romans, at the end, there is this remarkable expression of 
the Apocalypse, (i. 9,) — ev virofxovfj "Ir\aov Xpiarov) — which is 
found nowhere else under this form in the New Testament. 2 

277. As to Poly carp, if we have nothing left of his own writing 
but his Epistle to the Philippians, too short to contain any cita- 
tion from the Apocalypse of John, or from his Gospel, yet we 
possess, as we have seen, the account of his martyrdom. Written 
by his own church at Smyrna immediately after the event, it is to 
us equivalent to the testimony of Polycarp himself. But it repre- 

1 Rom. xvi. 14. Hefele (Patrum Apost. Opera, pag. lxxxi.) believes lie must 
adopt the opinion of the author of the Fragment of Muratori, (see Prop. 196,) 
which attributes it to the brother of Pope Pius I., from the year 142 to 147. 

2 We might bring forward other allusions, taken from the epistles of Ignatius 
to the Trallians and Philadelphians. But we prefer confining ourselves to the 
only uncontroverted epistles which are found in the Syriac collection, edited by 
Cureton, (Berlin, 1845.) 



TESTIMONIES TO THE APOCALYTSE. 



293 



sents to us his body burnt "like gold and silver melted in a 
furnace, (co? ^pvao^ icai apyvpos iv Kajiivw irvpov/JLevos ;)" and 
thus, in citing, according to all appearance, the passage in which 
Peter (1 Ep. i. 7) compares suffering Christians to gold tried by 
fire, (8ia nrvpos SoKOfia^ofievov,) they substitute the beautiful ex- 
pressions of the Apocalypse (i. 15) describing the feet of the Son 
of man — &>9 iv /eafitva ireirvpcofikvoL. The form of the phrase, 
it seems, can only be explained by this reminiscence of St John. 

And again, when, at the approach of the fire which they applied 
to the pile, Polycarp offered a prayer, he began with these words, 
taken also from the Apocalypse, in the prayer of the elders — 
Kvpie 6 @eo? o iravTOKpciTWp, (Apoc. xi. 17.) 

278. We can also cite at this period, so strangely destitute of 
monuments, Papias, who was bishop of Hierapolis, not far from 
Smyrna, where Polycarp resided, and who was, Irenseus tells us, 
(v. 23,) one of John's hearers, and a friend (kralpos) of Polycarp. 
He bore testimony in writing to the doctrine of the millennium in 
the fourth of his five books, which have all perished. 1 But if, in 
the absence of these writings, we appeal to the testimonies of 
antiquity, we find two eminent authors who, closely examined, 
leave us in no doubt respecting the use this father made of the 
Apocalypse. The one is Eusebius, in 321?, and the other Andreas, 
bishop of the same city in the sixth century. 

Andreas, who himself composed a commentary on the Apoca- 
lypse that is still extant, and who tells us that he consulted the 
ancient fathers, and made copious extracts from their writings, 
declares expressly, although he himself was an anti-chiliast, that 
Papias (as well as Irenaaus, Methodius, and Hippolytus,) had given 
testimony to the inspiration of this book, (irepl rov Oeoirvevarov 
t% ftlfiXov.) " As to the inspiration of the Apocalypse," he says, 
" we think it superfluous to employ many words to shew that the 
blessed Gregory, the theologian Cyril, and men more ancient, 
besides Papias, Irenaeus, Methodius, and Hippolytus, have borne 
testimony to the title this book has to our confidence, (ravrrj 

TrpOCTfiapTVpOVVTCDV TO U^lOTnaTOV.)" 2 

270. Eusebius, in his aversion to the millennium, tried to in- 

1 See Eusebius, Hist. Ecel., iii. 30, who cites some fragments. 

2 Biblioth. Patr. Max., v., 5S0, 590. 



294 



THE SECOND-FIEST CANON. 



sinuate that Irenseus and others had taken their doctrine on this 
subject from Papias, who was not worthy of much confidence, 
"because he was," he tells us, "a man of very small capacity, 
(<r(f)68pa yap to I a/Ai/cpo? cop top povp,) who formed his system 
from a misconstruction of the apostolic narratives, (to? diroaTo- 
\ifcds irapeKhe^dfjuevov Sirjyrjcreis,) and from not comprehending 
ivhat they had said mystically by figures, (ra iv viro8ety}jbao-i 
7r/3o? aurcop fJbvo-TLfccbs eiprjfjbepa)" Yet the testimony of Papias is 
not less of high importance, because his personal relations to John 
certainly prevented his attributing to this apostle a book which 
he had never written. 

The language of Eusebius is ambiguous and embarrassed. 
Sometimes he seems to wish to say that, according to the expres- 
sions of Papias, John, a presbyter, rather than John the apostle, 
might well have written the Apocalypse, and that Papias took his 
doctrine from him ; sometimes he seems to say that Papias would 
never have imagined his earthly reign of a thousand years but for 
misunderstanding the mystic language of the apostolic writings. 
But on either of these two contradictory suppositions, Papias, 
according to him, knew and cited the Apocalypse. 

Michaelis believes, on the contrary, that we might conclude 
from these passages of Eusebius that Papias derived his mil- 
lenarian doctrine only "from oral traditions." But Eusebius 
has not said so, and, to reach this conclusion, Michaelis is 
obliged to translate the words of Eusebius (irapeic&e^dfjuepop and 
&L7)yi]creLs) very differently from Valesius (H. de Valois) and many 
others. 1 

We conclude, then, from all this, (1.) That the very positive 
testimony of Andreas respecting Papias has much more force than 
the hypothetical and contradictory insinuations of Eusebius ; and 
(2.) That Papias, according to Eusebius himself, founded his mil- 
lenarian doctrine on the Apocalypse — on the Apocalypse of the 
apostle John, or on the Apocalypse of the presbyter John, but 
always on the Apocalypse. 2 

1 Instead of translating, " having misunderstood the apostolic narrations," he 
has re'ad, " having investigated the apostolic sayings." 

2 Eusebius having cited a fragment of Papias respecting the first disciples of 
the Saviour, in which the name of John occurs twice, and the second time with 



TESTIMONIES TO THE APOCALYPSE. 



295 



Section Fifth, 
testimonies of the second half of the same century. 

280. If we pass from the year 150 to the following years, 
numerous and eminent testimonies present themselves to us in 
different parts of the world, and these do not content themselves 
with merely mentioning the Apocalypse ; they comment upon it 
and quote it most freely. 

(1.) First of all, Justin Martyr, the converted philosopher, born 
in Palestine the same year, it is said, that the Apocalypse ap- 
peared, (in 102 or 103,) who became a Christian in 133, and 
suffered martyrdom in 165. He wrote his Dialogue at Ephesus, 
and must have known better than any other person what had 
happened there only thirty years before. But hear his words in 
his Dialogue with Trypho : — " A man among us named John, one 
of Christ's apostles, in an Apocalypse or Revelation which he 
made, (iv airoicakv^ei yevo/xevn avra,) has prophesied that all 
those who believe in our Christ shall live a thousand years in 
Jerusalem." 1 

(2.) We have next, in 177, The Narrative of the Martyrs of 
Lyons, composed by one of the Christians of that city, who had 
escaped the carnage, and addressed by the churches of Gaul to 
those of proconsular Asia. Eusebius 2 has preserved it for us; the 
language of the Apocalypse pervades it. We find, for example, 
this remarkable expression used (Apoc. xiv. 4) to describe a true 
disciple of Christ: — "I follow the Lamb wherever he goeth," 
(uKokovOwv tco 'Apvlte ottov av virdyv.) And this other, so cha- 
racteristic, referring to Christ, (Apoc. i. 5; iii. 14,) — "To the 

the epithet of pretbyter, concluded that perhaps there were two Johns, one an 
apostle, the other a presbyter, and that perhaps it was this last, if not the other, 
who wrote the Apocalypse. Two sepulchres of John, he adds, are shewn at 
Ephesus; and he infers from that that one might be the apostle's, and the other 
the presbyter's. Eusebius would have lit' le credit for sagacity if all his conclu- 
sions were of no more worth than this. The same Eusebius (iii., 2:3) has strongly 
affirmed, " on the testimony," he says, " of men most worthy of credit, Irenseus 
and Clement of Alexandria," that the apostle St John lived to the reign of 
Trajan, having returned from Patmoa to Ephesus after the death of the tyrant, 
(Domitian.) 1 See also Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., iv. 18. 2 Hist. Eccl., v., L 



296 



THE SECOND-FIRST CANON. 



faithful and true witness, and the first -horn of the dead, (tw 
iTiaTW teal akr]6ivcp /jLctprvpt, kqI nrpwroTOicw tcop vercpcov.)" And 
again, (Apoc. xxii. 11,) speaking of the rage of these persecutors 
resembling the beast, (dvplov,) that the scripture may be ful- 
filled. And what scripture? Without doubt that which they 
soon after quote word for word, — "He that is unjust, let him 
be unjust still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous 
still" 

(3.) Again, we have the celebrated Irenaeus, who came shortly- 
after the martyrs, to take charge of the church of Lyons. In his 
great work, Be Haeresibus, written about the year 185, he very 
often and copiously refers to the Apocalypse, quoting it in at least 
thirty-one different passages, calling it the work of that John, the 
Lord's disciple, who at the Last Supper lay on His breast. 1 He 
comments on it frequently, and when he explains the number of 
the beast, appeals "to all the most exact, ancient copies of this 
holy book, (iv iracrL Be jots cnrovBaioi^ teal ap^aioLs; avTiypacpoLs,) 
and to the testimony of those who had seen John with their own 
eyes." 

(4.) In the fourth place, we find at Sardis, in Asia Minor, about 
the year 170, Melito, who presided over this church when they 
received the letter of the churches of Gaul respecting the martyrs 
of Lyons. He had written himself a treatise on " The Apocalypse 
of St John." 2 

(5.) We have spoken of the fragment of the Latin canon of 
Muratori, which is allowed to be very ancient, (Propp. 193-198.) 
We find in it these remarkable words :- — " We also receive the 
Apocalypse of John, which some of our people will not have 
read in the church. And John, in the Apocalypse, though he 
writes to the churches, yet says to all, [Apocalypsin etiam Jo- 
hannes recipemus, quam quidam ex nostris legi in ecclesia 
nolunt. M Johannes in Apocalypsi licet septem ecclesiis scri- 
bat tamen omnibus dicit.)" .... 

It is important, in passing, to remark, in the last words of this 

1 De Haer., iv., 37, 50, v., 26, 3Q, 

2 n^i rng ' Ano'/.a}.V'^zcjjg 'lw&vvou. Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., iv., 26. See 
also Jerome, (De Vir. Illustr., ch. xxiv.) Melito presented, in 172, to the Emperor 
Marcus Aurelius, an "Apology for the Christian Keligion." 



TESTIMONIES TO THE APOCALYPSE. 



297 



catalogue, a usage which explains and confirms what we have 
said (Prop. 90) of the later decree of the Council of Laodicea. 
The Apocalypse was universally received as Divine ; but " many, 
at the same time, on account of its obscurity, did not wish it to 
be read in the public assemblies, (quid-am ex nostris legi in ecclesia 
nolunt)" 

(6.) We find in Syria, at the same period, Theophilus, bishop of 
Antioch, who, in combating the error of Hermogenes, quotes 
against him the Apocalypse. This was in 181. 1 

(7.) At Eome, in 186, Apollonius, called " the eloquent/' and 
who is believed to be the same person whose affecting martyrdom 
Eusebius has narrated in his Ecclesiastical History, (v. 21.) He 
mentions his having appealed to testimonies taken from the Apo- 
calypse of John. 2 

(8.) Lastly, at the same time, we find in Africa two of the most 
respectable witnesses that Christian antiquity can produce. One 
of them, who will be the eighth, is Clement of Alexandria, about 
the year 191. He cites the Apocalypse very frequently. 

(9.) The other, at Carthage, is the great Tertullian, the most 
ancient of the Latin fathers, as he is, also, one of the most en- 
lightened. We can count more than seventy passages in which 
Tertullian cites the Apocalypse. He asserts that it is the work of 
the Apostle John. He defends it against the heretic Marcion, 
(iv. 5.,) who rejected it only for doctrinal reasons ; and he appeals, 
on this point, (which is important,) to the testimony of the 
churches of Asia, and to the succession of bishops, going bach to 
John, the author of that book. (" Habemus et Johannis alumnas 
ecclesias ; nam etsi Apocalypsin ejus Marcion respuit, ordo 
tamen episcoporum ad originem recensus, in Johannem stabit 
auctorem.") 

All these great teachers continually cite the Apocalypse with- 
out mentioning the least opposition raised against it, up to their 
time, in the churches of God. Thus, to the end of the second 
century, and even to the beginning of tho third, this holy book 
was universally regarded as the inspired work of the apostle John, 
whether in the Greek Church or the Latin — in Egypt, in Pales- 

1 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., iv., 24. 



298 



THE SECOND-FIRST CANON. 



tine, in Asia Minor, in Syria, in Italy, in Africa, and even in 
Gaul.l 

Section Sixth, 
the first half of the third century. 

281. We must come down towards the middle of the third 
century to hear of the first serious opposition. It was not till 
then that some isolated depredators of the Apocalypse began to be 
heard in the Church, and yet they alleged no historical reason 
against it. Eusebius, with all his prejudices, could only find, at 
the beginning of the century, one voice (the first) at Rome, that 
of a presbyter named Caius, who, in a controversy with Prochus, 
in order to repel his gross errors on the millennium, had set him- 
self against this book by attributing it to Oerinthus. 2 But even 
his attacks (see Eusebius) have not been clearly ascertained. 3 
Hug questions them. 4 This Caius was animated by a strong 
antipathy against the millenarian doctrine, of which he had con- 
ceived a revolting idea from the totally carnal descriptions of it 
by Cerinthus, the Gnostic, who, it is said, was opposed by St John. 
But Caius, in the words cited by Eusebius, (iii. 28,) did not say, 
as was asserted, that Cerinthus ascribed his gross notions to the 
Apocalypse. He traced them "to certain revelations, (pi airo- 
fcakvylrecov,)" which, he asserted, " were written by a great apostle," 
and " to wonders which, he pretended, had been shewn him by 
angels.'" 5 Further, the martyr Hippolytus has victoriously refuted, 
in several chapters of his writings, the errors of Caius ; and, what- 
ever may have been the words of the latter in Rome, words which 
remain unknown, they certainly made a very slight impression 
there, since Rome, as well as the churches of the West, has never 
ceased to acknowledge this scripture as an inspired book. 

It would appear, also, from some words of Dionysius of Alex- 

1 We do not speak of heretics. Out of the Church, the impious sect of the 
Alogi, enemies of the term Logos applied to Jesus Christ, rejected at the same 
time the Gospel of John and his Apocalypse. 2 Hist. Eccl.j iii. 28, yii., 25. 

3 Michaelis, (French translation,) iv., pp. 528-548. 

4 See his Introduction. 

5 A/' dno7ia}.v^swv ug vnb dnotiTohov [tzyoVkou ysygajxftiVM, rs^aXoytag 
7}>m?v ug bt dyy'sXojv avruj dzdsty/j/svug ^>ivdo{A&vog. 



TESTIMONIES TO THE APOCALYPSE. 



299 



andria, 1 cited by Eusebius, (vii. 25,) that in Egypt, about a quarter 
of a century after Caius, some anonymous persons, before the days 
of Dionysius, (the Alogi,) had rejected the Apocalypse, and had 
gone to the absurd hardihood of attributing it to Cerinthus. 
Absurd, we say, because there is not a sacred book more con- 
trary to the peculiar doctrines of Cerinthus than the Apocalypse, 
as Lardner has proved. 2 

282. Lastly, Eusebius shews us, again in Egypt, forty years 
after Caius, towards the middle of the third century, the first man 
of any note who raised his voice, not against the canonicity or 
Divine inspiration of the Apocalypse, (for he acknowledged both,) 
but only against its apostolicity. This was Dionysius, bishop of 
Alexandria from the year 24?7, who died in 264 ; a man of learn- 
ing, and justly respected, but of whose numerous writings we 
know scarcely anything except by the fragments preserved in the 
history of Eusebius. 3 Yet it is somewhat remarkable that Diony- 
sius, to justify his prejudices against the apostolic authorship of 
the Apocalypse, has not been able, as we have just intimated, to 
allege a single historical argument, and is obliged to content him- 
self with saying, " that some before him had rejected it, attributing 
it to Cerinthus." And, certainly, that so learned a man should 
find it impossible to advance any historic objection, is a fact 
which Michaelis 4 impartially declares to be of " very great 
weight/' 

We will now state what are almost the only reasons alleged 
by Dionysius to prove that the Apocalypse, instead of being St 
John's, was the work of some other disciple equally inspired, and 
bearing the same name; for example, of John Mark, (the cousin 
of Barnabas,) or, rather, of another John, who lived in the pro- 
vince of Asia ; for he said that two sepulchres were still shewn 
near Ephesus, both distinguished by the name of John. 

In the first place, the author of the Apocalypse calls himself 
John more than once ; while the apostle has never named himself 
either in the epistles or in his Gospel. In the second place, while 

1 T/v;g /xsv oOv Tut r.S<, t^aw, says Dionysius. 

2 Vol. ii., (in ito,) p. 700. 

3 VII., 20, 22, 25, 26, vi., 45, 40, (above all, vii., 25.) 

4 Chap, xxxii., vol. ii. ; vi., p. 184. 



300 



THE SECOND-FIEST CANON. 



calling himself John, he never says apostle. Then there is no 
mention of the epistles of John in the Apocalypse, nor of the 
Apocalypse in the epistles. In the fourth place, there are great 
resemblances between the three epistles and the Gospel of John ; 
but none can be found between those books and the Apocalypse. 
Fifthly, while the Greek of those books is very correct, that of 
the Apocalypse is not so. 

Of all these objections, the only serious one is that relating to 
the dissimilarity of styles. 

But every one knows how very different in this respect are often 
the productions of the same author, according to the subjects he 
treats of, the period or circumstances of his writing. Who has 
not noticed this in the sacred authors of both Testaments, accord- 
ing as they narrate, or exhort, or prophesy ? Let any one make 
the trial, and compare, for example, Moses in his history, with 
Moses in his last song, (Deut. xxxii. ;) Isaiah in his historical 
chapters, (xxxvi. to xxxviii.,) with Isaiah in his poetic prophecies ; 
St Paul in his Epistle to the Eomans, with St Paul in his Epistle 
to Philemon. 

Even Dionysius, after having laid open his prejudices against 
the Apocalypse, takes care to add, " that for himself, he dare not 
reject it, so many brethren being strongly attached to it." 1 And 
if he hesitates to grant that John, the son of Zebedee, was its 
author, he by no means doubts its " inspiration " — " that the 
John, whoever he might be, who wrote the Apocalypse had a 
Divine revelation — that he received from heaven knowledge, and 
a prophecy, is what I will not deny; 2 and i" admit, with others, 
that it must have been the work of some holy and divinely- 
inspired man, (dylav /xev <yap ewal revos kclL Oeoirvevarov 
ctvpatvco.)" 

Thus, then, we must not rank even Dionysius of Alexandria 
among the opponents of the Apocalypse. I mean, of its canon- 
icity and its inspiration ; he only impugned its apostolicity, and 
he did even this with a considerable measure of reserve and doubt. 

1 'E^w ds dhrritfat /&sv cvx av roXf/tfjGccijtii rb (3i(3\tov } iroXXuiV uvto did 
OffovbTig expvruv ddtXtpuv. 

o\j% rkvrsooj. 



TESTIMONIES TO THE APOCALYPSE. 



301 



And if, since Dionysius, objectors have become for a time more 
numerous and more confident, they have never appealed, as we 
have said, to history ; so that their prejudices ought not to have 
more weight with us than we grant to those of modern authors. 

283. But while in this first half of the third century the first 
isolated expressions of doubt which Eusebius was able to quote 
made themselves heard with so much reserve, — while he beheld 
far behind him, during the same time, the long chain of witnesses, 
this chain, which we have seen begin in the days of the apostles, 
continued to extend itself with increasing reputation ; and in par- 
ticular, three of the most pious, and, what is of importance here, 
three of the most learned doctors of Christian antiquity, — all three 
martyrs or son.s of martyrs — one in Asia, at Eome, and in Arabia, 
the other in Palestine, and the third at Carthage, — loudly ex- 
pressed, and with copious citations, their veneration for the Apo- 
calypse, 

The first, Hippolytus, one of the most learned men of antiquit}^ 
not less celebrated in mathematics and astronomy than in sacred 
literature, was an intimate friend of Origen. He was a teacher at 
once for the East and the West ; for after having been, as it is 
believed, bishop of Aden, 1 in Arabia, he came to the capital of the 
empire about the year 235, laboured there for a long time, and 
even is believed to have suffered martyrdom there. 2 This great 
man was not content with frequently citing the Apocalypse as one 
of the inspired works of the apostle John. He wrote a commen- 
tary upon it often cited by the ancients, 3 and devoted some chap- 
ters expressly to refute the errors of Caius. The testimony of a 
man so learned and so pious was of such weight, that Michaelis 
attributes chiefly to his influence the universal reception of the 

1 Portus Romanus. This fact, maintained by Cave, (Hist. Litt. Saeculum 
Novatianum,) is strongly rejected by Bunsen, (see bis Hippolytus.) But the 
arguments of Cave remain, and we do not think that they have been satisfactorily 
answered. 

2 At least there was in his time a Bishop Hippolytus quartered for the king- 
dom of God. In 1551, near the walls of Rome, a curious marble was dis- 
covered raised to his memory, and bearing a list of his works, so highly were they 
esteemed. (See Bunsen's Hippolytus, vol. i., p. xxii., 1:5, 210, 213.) 

3 Among others, by Andreas, bishop of Caesarea, in 520, and Jacob the Syrian, 
bishop of Edessa, in 051. (Michaelis, p. 479.) 



302 



THE SECOND-FIRST CANON. 



Apocalypse in the Christian Church. In his book on Christ and 
Antichrist, in seventy short chapters, which we still possess, he 
says, " John saw in the isle of Patmos terrible mysteries. Tell me, 
then, John, thou apostle and disciple of Christ, what hast thou 
seen of Babylon ? " 

The second witness, still more illustrious, is Origen, in the first 
half of the third century. There is not, indeed, an authority of 
equal weight in all antiquity on a question of sacred criticism. He 
was born fifteen years before the end of the second century, and 
died in 253. " This learned man," Michaelis says, " notwithstand- 
ing his ardent opposition to the doctrine of the millenarians, 
received the Apocalypse into the canon of the inspired Scrip- 
tures." He had not the least doubt of its authenticity as a work 
of John the son of Zebedee. In his commentary on St John, he 
calls that apostle, on account of the Apocalypse, (Bi>a t?}? airotca- 
\v\jrecos,) apostle, evangelist, and prophet. He mentions this book 
so often in his writings, that it would be superfluous to accumulate 
citations. " What shall we say of John, who laid his head on the 
bosom of Jesus," he writes in a passage preserved by Eusebius, 1 
"for not only has he left us a Gospel, declaring that he could have 
written many more things in it, so that the world could not con- 
tain them, but he has likewise written the Apocalypse, 2 in which 
it was ordained for him to seal up the things uttered by the seven 
thunders, and not to write them ? " Therefore the learned Dr 
Liicke, a modern opponent of the Apocalypse, has had the fairness 
to say, " That which is of the greatest weight against us is, that 
Origen has so often cited this book as being the work of the 
apostle John, 3 — Origen, who made so many researches relative to 
the canon of the New Testament, to its limits and its classifica- 
tions, and who never concealed the objections raised against such 
or such a book/' 

Lastly, the third of our witnesses at this remote epoch is the 
learned and pious Cyprian in Eoman Africa, the contemporary of 
Origen, and the martyr of Carthage. When he cites the Apoca- 

1 Hist. Eccl., v., 25. See other remarkable citations in Kirchhofer, 1842, 
p. 309. 

3 " De bona patient." He cites there Apoc. xix. 10. 



TESTIMONIES TO THE APOCALYPSE. 



S03 



lypse, it is as a ivork of St John, as a book of Holy Scripture, 1 
as a writing inspired by God.% 

Section Seventh, 
the second half of the third centue.y. 

284. In this latter portion of the century we shall meet no new 
opponent of importance ; on the contrary, we shall find the Apoca- 
lypse received into the canon as an apostolic writing, as fully by 
the teachers of the schismatic churches, the Novatians and Dona- 
tists, 3 as by the most eminent writers of the age in the universal 
Church ; — I mean, by Victorinus, bishop of Pettaw, who suffered 
martyrdom under Diocletian, and who wrote a commentary on the 
Apocalypse ; 4 by Methodius, his contemporary, bishop of Tyre, 
and, like him, a martyr ; 5 by Arnobius of Numidia, the illustrious 
apologist of the Christian religion, in his commentary on the 
] 02d Psalm ; 6 and, lastly, by the learned Lactantius, his disciple, 
to whom the Emperor Constantine intrusted the education of his 
son, and who died, it is said, in 325.7 

285. Thus, then, from the first appearance of the Apocalypse, 
the long chain of testimonies rendered by the most brilliant lights 
of the Church to its authenticity, inspiration, and apostolicity, was 
continued. These testimonies were brilliant in the east, and not 
less brilliant in the west ; they were proclaimed in the north as 
far as Pannonia and Gaul, and to the south, in Italy, Asia Minor, 
Palestine, Egypt, Arabia, and Proconsular Africa ; and if, at the 
same time, some isolated voices less approving, hesitating, or con- 
trary were heard, not on the inspiration of the book, but on the 
person of its author, even these voices must add new weight to 
our argument, since they attest the absolute inability of its adver- 
saries to cite any historic proof in support of their opposition. 

1 "De Eleeinos." He cite3 Apoc. iii. 17, 18. "Audi in Apocalypsi Domini tui 
vocem," &c. 

2 He cites also Apoc. xvii. 15. "In Apocalyp.si Scriptura Sacra declarat 
dicens. ..." 3 Lardner, iii., 121, 5G5. Edit, in 4to. 4 Ibid., p. 1G3. 

5 Ibid., pp. 181, 198. 

6 Ibid., p. 4S0. If the commentaries on the Psalms are not the work of Arno- 
bius the younger. (Cave, Hist. Litt., i., p. 161.) 

7 Instit., vii., 17; Epitome, cap. xlii., 73, 74. 



304 



THE SECOND-FIRST CANON. 



Section Eighth, 
"witnesses of the foueth century. 

286. The voices of this fourth century, notwithstanding the 
hesitation of Eusebius and the silence of Cyril, Gregory, and 
Chrysostom, were very distinct, and prepared for the unanimous 
readoption of the Apocalypse in all parts of the universal Church. 

Among the Latins all the great theologians of the age bore 
testimony to it — St Ambrose, at Milan ; St Jerome, in Borne, and 
afterwards in the East ; 1 St Augustin, in Proconsular Africa, 
where his writings no sooner appeared than they spread, it was 
said, like the light ; Kufinus, in Venetia, in the East, and in 
Rome. 2 

Among the Syrians it had St Ephrem for a witness, the most 
eminent of all their teachers, 3 although it is not found, as we have 
said, in their Peshito version, 4 which was made before the death of 
St John. St Ephrem makes use of all the books of the New 
Testament, as well in his works which remain to us in Greek as 
in those which are in Syriac, (Opera, Syr., ii, 232.) He says, for 
example, " John saw in his Ajoocalypse a great and admirable 
book, guarded by seven seals." And elsewhere, (ii. p. 342,) " The 
day of the Lord is a thief," (Apoc. iii. 3, xvi. 45.) These 
Syriac churches spread through all the East, into Tartary, and 
even as far as China. The famous monument discovered by the 
Jesuits at Sanxuen, 5 bore on its two inscriptions, as we have 
already said, (Prop. 275,) the mention of the New Testament as 
containing twenty-seven books, which proves that for these churches 
the Apocalypse made a part of it. 

287. Among the Greeks the most illustrious theologians of this 

1 " Apocalypsis Johannis," he says in his letter to Paulinus, " tot habet sacra- 
menta quot verba." (Opp., torn, iv., p. 576.) 

2 "Johannis epistolae tres," "Apocalypsis Johannis," he says. " Haec sunt 
quae Patves inter Canonem concluserunt ; ex quibus fidei nostrae assertiones con- 
stare voluerunt." — Expositio in Symb. Apost, p. 26, apud Cyprianum. 

3 See Michaelis, p. 495-497 ; Lardner, vol. iv., p. 313. 

4 Propp. 32-34, 275. 

5 And found again in 1850 by the care of the Protestant bishop of Shanghai — 
North China Herald. The Record, March 31, 1851. 



TESTIMONIES TO THE APOCALYPSE. 



305 



century received the Apocalypse as a divinely-inspired writing. 
Among others, Athanasius, who often cites it, and who, in his 
" Festal Epistle," gives us actually the same catalogue of the 
writings of the New Testament which all the churches of Chris- 
tendom offer at the present day, (Propp. 65, 66 ;) Epiphanius, 
(Propp. 68, 69 ;) St Basil the Great, who cites it in his second 
book against Eunomius, 1 and who is named by Arethas as ac- 
knowledging its inspiration ; St Cyril, the patriarch of Alexandria. 
Therefore we see that Eusebius has not dared, in his chapter on the 
canon, (Hist. Eccl., iii. 25,) to leave it out of the number of the 
uncontroverted books; and with these is to be placed, (ra/creov,) he 
says, " the Apocalypse of John, if it should appear so, (eiye 
(pavelrj,) .... which some, as I have said, reject, but others 
reckon it among the homologoumena, (iytcplvovcn to?? ofioXoyov- 
fievois.)" Thus Eusebius, sometimes favourable, sometimes hesi- 
tating, yielded to the prejudices of his times against the millen- 
arianism which was attributed to the Apocalypse ; but he acknow- 
ledged very freely that the historical testimonies of the ancients 
were all favourable to it. 

Cyril of Jerusalem appears to have hesitated, like Eusebius, 
on this point; for if he has not named the Apocalypse in the 
catalogue which we find in his fourth catechesis, (Prop. 59,) yet 
he cites it very clearly three times (Apoc. xii. and xvii.) in his 
fifteenth catechesis, (chapters 12, 13, and 27.) 2 And we believe 
we may say as much of Gregory of Nazianzus and of Chrysostom, 
for both, though they received, as it would appear, the Apocalypse, 
have abstained, like Calvin in modern times, from commenting 
upon it, and have made only some few quotations from it ; so 
that their opinion on this book has remained a subject of con- 
troversy. 

In fact, as to Gregory of Nazianzus, although in the verses of 
his xxxiii. poem (Propp. 60, 61) he has not, as we have said, 
named directly the Ptevelation of St John, yet in the 24th verse 
we have seen him mark this apostle sufficiently as the author of 
the Apocalypse, when he calls him Ki)pv% /zcya?, ovpavo<povT7]s, 

1 Lardner, vol. p. 279, v., 13. 

2 See Moses Stuart on the Apocalypse, vol. i., p. 301 ; Elliott, Horae Apoc, 
p. 32, (3d edition.) 

U 



306 



THE SECOND-FIRST CANON. 



"The great herald who perambulates heaven." Moreover, in 
another of his writings which is extant, Lardner says that 
Gregory 1 clearly cites the Apocalypse twice ; and Andreas of 
Caesarea, not only mentions him as one of the fathers who ac- 
knowledged it, but cites it himself on several occasions. 2 

And as to Chrysostom, though he scarcely ever cites the 
Apocalypse, we hear him, at the beginning of his commentary on 
the Epistle to the Ephesians, making an evident allusion to it 
when he names St John as "the blessed evangelist, who was 
exiled in the neighbourhood of Ephesus, (/cat yap teal e^coplaOr] 
exec,) and who ended his days there."- And Professor Liicke 3 
has pointed out, after Wetstein and Schmid, many passages in 
the homilies of Chrysostom on Matthew, where that father evi- 
dently borrows from the Apocalypse, which seems, he says, to 
confirm the assertion of Suidas, that Chrysostom received the 
three epistles of John, and his Apocalypse, (Se^erat Be 6 Xpvaocr- 
to/jlos fcal to.? eTTUJTokas avrov ra? rpeis /cal ttjv ^AiroicaXvtyiv?) 
and this shews how very little we ought to rely on negative argu- 
ments taken from the absence or rarity of certain citations in 
certain authors. 

288. In the same century two councils drew up, as we have 
mentioned, their catalogues of the Holy Scriptures, and one of 
them — that of Laodicea, in Phrygia, in 367 — excluded the Apoca- 
lypse from the canon, while the other — that of Carthage, in 397 — 
admitted it. But, as we have shewn in our First Book, (Chap, xii ,) 
the authenticity of the decrees which in both cases referred to 
this subject has been formally called in question ; and even ad- 
mitting their authenticity, the intention of the fathers was not to 
fix authoritatively what were the inspired books of the Old and the 
New Testament, but only to decide, as the terms of the decree 4 

1 The first time he says, ' £lg 'luavvrig diddaxsi fis diu, ry\g ' AvoxaXv^sug. 
The second time he quotes this verse — Ka/ 6 aiv, xut 6 rjv, xai 6 sgyo^tvog, 6 
Uavroxgarojp. 

2 In his commentary on the Apocalypse. See Lardner, v., 5. See Prop. 61, 
and the Note. 

3 Liicke, Einleitung, p. 337. 

5 " Quia a Patribus (the decree of Carthage says) ista accipimus in Ecclesid 
legenda." ""Or/ ov Bit (says that of Laodicea) /diunxovg ^>aX/xovg {jplebeios 
psalmos) AE TE20AI 'EN Tft EKKAH2IA ovds axuvoviaru j8//SX/a, u\- 



TESTIMONIES TO THE APOCALYPSE. 



307 



sufficiently express, what books might be usefully read in the 
public assemblies of the Church, and luhat ought not to be read. 

Thus, while in the Council of Laodicea, the divine but mys- 
terious book of the Apocalypse was excepted from this number — 
as at the present day it is by our brethren of the Anglican Church 
in their calendar and preface to their liturgy, though esteemed by 
them a canonical book — on the other hand, in the Council of 
Carthage, it was decided to allow the public reading, not only of 
the inspired and properly canonical books, but also of some other 
books revered for their doctrine and their antiquity, which on 
this account were called ecclesiastical, and sometimes, but more 
rarely, regular or regulative, (that is to say, serving as a rule for 
manners if not for belief,) and in regard to which the practice of 
one church might differ from the practice of another. 1 

289. Thus, then, the Apocalypse, during the three first centuries 
which followed its appearance in the Church — I mean, during the 
second, third, and fourth centuries — was received as divine ; and 
though Dionysius of Alexandria in the third century expressed 
some doubts affecting, not its canonicity, but its apostolicity ; 
though others at a later period, in the East especially, during the 
times of Eusebius, and the evil times of Arianism, hesitated to 
accept and use it for public worship ; though at the end of the 

Xa /nova Tot xaiw/Jta." — Bruns, Canones Apost. et Concil, Berolini, 1839, p. 79, 
(the fifty-ninth canon of the council, or the sixty-third in the " Codex Cauonum 
Eccl. Univ.") 

1 See on this subject our Propp. 88, 89, and Note 2, p. 76. More ample state- 
ments will be found (1.) in Cosin, " History of the Canon to the Year 419," London, 
1683; and (2.) in Westcott, "General Survey of the History of the Canon of the 
New Testament," Cambridge, 1855. The latter writer, after a very attentive 
study of the Greek manuscripts of the canon, of their Latin versions, and, above 
all, of the Syriac manuscripts preserved in the British Museum, as well as the 
systematic collections of the canons made at different times, judges, contrary to 
Cosin, that "on the whole it cannot be doubted that external evidence is decidedly 
against the authenticity of the catalogue as an integral part of the text of the 
Canons of Laodicea." He thinks that "the catalogue is of Eastern and not of 
"Western origin;" and "that some early copyist endeavoured to supply, either 
from the writings of Cyril, or more probably from the usage of the Church which 
Cyril represented, the list of books which seemed to be required by the language 
of the last genuine canon." (Pp. 501, 505.) Professor Spittler (according to 
Michaelis, p. 489) had already endeavoured to shew that this part of the canon of 
Laodicea is an imposture, and has been marked as suspected in many editions of 
the Councils; for example, in Ilarduin, (pp. 292, 293.) 



808 



THE SECOND-FIRST CANON. 



fourth century many churches of the Greeks, as St Jerome 1 has 
expressed it, did not receive it with the same liberty as their pre- 
decessors had done, and all the churches of the West still did ; 
yet their objections had never an historical character, and were 
always rejected and combated by the great body of teachers. No 
church could be named which absolutely rejected it, and it was 
never attacked but the attack was censured ; so that Augustin, at 
the end of the fourth, and at the beginning of the fifth, century, 
classed the rejection of the Apocalypse among the heresies, (De 
Haeres., cap. xxx.,) as Tertullian had done in the second and 
third, (Contra Marcion, lib. iv.) 

Section Ninth. 

fifth century. 

290. The fifth century at last saw an end put to the uncer- 
tainties which had followed in the fourth, the days of Eusebius, 
and the controversy of the anti-millenarians. At that time, 
when Arianism had done so much mischief to the churches, there 
were minds disposed to make light of the testimonies of antiquity 
in order to give themselves up to rash conjectures, destitute en- 
tirely of an historical basis, and having no support but doctrinal 
prejudices. It is to this tendency of his times that Jerome 
alludes when, speaking of the Epistle to the Hebrews and the 
Apocalypse, he says — (Ep. 119 ad Dardan.,) — "And yet, for our- 
selves, we receive both of these books, (et tamen nos utrumque 
suscipimus,) conforming, in so doing, not to the fashion of the 
times, but to the authority of ancient authors, (nequaquam hujus 
temporis consuetudinem, sed veterum scriptorum auctoritatem se- 
quentes.)" Nevertheless, starting from the first half of this century, 
the unanimity of the churches, which for a long time had been 
gained for all the books of the second canon, was finally and for 
ever given to the sacred book of the Apocalypse. 

1 " Nec Graecorum quidem ecclesiae Apocalypsin Joannis eadem libertate sus- 
cipiunt et tamen nos (earn) suscipimus .... veterum scriptorum auctoritatem 
sequentes." — Ep. ad Dardanum, torn, ii., p. 608. Edit. Paris. 



CHAPTER II. 



the epistle to the hebrews. 

Section First. 

its character and history. 

291. The matter, style, order, and scope of this book are sufficient 
to impress upon it a peculiar character of majesty. The noble 
eloquence of its diction, and the calm authority and sublime sim- 
plicity of its tone, correspond to the profundity and elevation of 
its doctrines. We abstain, in general, from taking our arguments 
from internal criticism, and from seeking for them elsewhere than 
in the testimonies of history ; but it is also from history, as the 
impression of all time, produced in favour of this book by the 
religious sublimity of its teachings. God, who had spoken by His 
prophets, has spoken to us at last by His own Son, the brightness 
of His glory, and the express image of His person, and as much 
superior to the angels as the Creator to the created. We must 
contemplate here the eternal existence of this Son of God, and 
His mysterious humanity ; His eternal apostleship and priesthood, 
His ineffable sympathy, His all-powerful intercession, and the per- 
fect fulness of His expiation ; then, also, the divine harmony of 
the two Testaments, the identical characteristics of the elect in all 
ages, the ardent aspirations of the people of God relative to Christ, 
the eternal safety of those who belong to Him, the dreadful ruin 
of those who reject Him ; lastly, the cloud of witnesses who 
attest the efficacy, the power, and the reality of faith. Such are 
the sublime teachings of this epistle ; and the whole ending in a 
final act of adoration to that God of peace, who " brought from 



SIO 



THE SECOND-FIRST CANON. 



the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the 
Everlasting, and who alone is able to work in us that which is 
acceptable in his sight, through Jesus Christ ; to whom be glory 
for ever and ever \ " 

292. Evidently written before the destruction of the temple, 1 
and, according to all appearance, before the martyrdom of James, 
(which took place in 62,) and to whom it seems to allude, 2 this 
epistle, addressed, moreover, to converted Hebrews, and sent, con- 
sequently, either to Palestine, or, more particularly, to the church 
at Jerusalem, or to the Hebrews scattered throughout the em- 
pire, — this epistle, we say, forms rather a treatise than a letter. 
It must have first circulated from Jerusalem through all the 
Israelitish congregations in the East; and we might reasonably 
expect, supposing this scripture to be authentic, that, above all, 
the Israelitish churches of the East, the Syrian churches, and par- 
ticularly the church of Jerusalem, would furnish us with the 
most authentic and trustworthy information respecting it. We 
can, also, readily grant that, if this scripture were supposititious, 
it would be among the Hebrews, rather than in any other part of 
the Christian world, that we should hear the most violent opposi- 
tion to its legitimacy. An impostor would have sought for par- 
tisans, recommendations, and false testimonies, as far as possible, 
from the churches of Judea. 

293. It is, then, precisely an historical fact, most worthy of 
notice, that, uninterruptedly, from the days of the apostles, the 
Epistle to the Hebrews has been received as Divine at Jerusalem, 
among the Syriac Christians, and in all the churches of the East. 

294. It must, also, be equally granted, that if, as it affirms, this 
letter was written from Italy a very short time before the Ne- 
ronian persecution, it would be immediately acknowledged by the 
Christians of Eome ; and it is equally admitted, even by opponents, 
that it was fully recognised and quoted in Rome by Clement, 
bishop of Rome, a contemporary of Paul, the most ancient and 
revered of the apostolic fathers. 

295. Nevertheless, the churches of the West, and, more espe- 
cially, that very church of Rome, after having at first rendered to 

1 See Heb. ix. 6, 7, x. 1-3, 11. 

2 Heb. xiii. 7. Tijv h(3a6iv rq$ umdr^o^g. 



THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 



311 



the epistle a homage so early, and so decisive, began, towards the 
first half of the third century, to hear voices of opposition, on 
account of the Montanists and Novatianists. 1 

In consequence of this, we think it right to reserve a place 
apart for the Latin fathers in the review we are about to take of 
the testimonies of antiquity ; and we shall begin with noticing on 
this subject the unanimity of the churches of the East. It will, 
perhaps, be more useful in this review to set out at first from the 
fourth century in the East, and to go back from that to the first, 
in order to redescend afterwards, in the West, to the fourth or 
fifth century. 

Section Second, 
the testimonies of the east in the foueth century. 

296. And, first of all, to what person more worthy of credence 
can we appeal, in the fourth century, than to the patriarch of the 
Hebrews, Cyril of Jerusalem, one of the most learned and most 
pious men of his age? He was born in 315. Already famous at 
the age of thirty-four, he composed his Catecheses, one of the 
most ancient expositions we have of the Christian faith. He was, 
also, one of the most eminent leaders of the Second Oecumenical 
Council, held at Constantinople in 381. 2 But Cyril, (we have 
already seen, Prop. 59,) when he gives, at Jerusalem itself, in 
his fourth Catechesis, a catalogue of the divine and insjnred (at 
Oeoirveva-roi) books of the Old and New Testaments, reckons in 
it, besides the seven Catholic epistles, the fourteen epistles of 
Paul, (tcls HaxiKov Sefcarecro-apas eVtcrToXa?,) and he declares 
that " the collection of all these books was transmitted to us by 
the apostle and ancient bishops, the presidents of the Church, (pi 
airoarokoL Kal ol dp^alot iiriaKoiTOL, ol rrj? e/c/cX^cr/a? Trpoardrat, 
ol TavTas [fjbovas /3c/3\ov<;] TrapaSovres.)" 

297. And again, what other witness in the East better informed 
than the learned Jerome ? When he went from Home to pursue 
his biblical studies in Palestine, he probably brought with him 
the prejudices of the Latins against the Epistle to the Hebrews. 

1 No doubt because they erroneously supported their views by chap. vi. See 
Kirchhofer on the Canon, pp. 2-10, 213, 247, 425, (Quellcnsammlung zur Gesch. des 
Neutest, Can. bis auf Hierom. Zurich, 1842.) 2 See Socrates, Hist. Eccl., v., 8. 



312 



THE SECOND-FIKST CANON. 



And yet he attests that he receives both it and the Apocalypse ; 
and, moreover, he declares to the Christians of the West, in his 
letter to Dardanus, already quoted, (Prop. 290,) that not only it 
was actually received as Paul's in all the churches of the East, 
but that it had been so by all the ancient writers in the Greek 
language, and that it was read daily in the assemblies of the 
Church. " This/' said he, " is what must be made known to all 
our churches, (that is, to the Latins,) though most of them believe 
it to be by Barnabas or Clement, (epistolam quae inscribitur ad 
Hebraeos, non solum ab ecclesiis orientis, sed ab omnibus retro 
ecclesiasticis Graeci sermonis scriptoribus quasi Pauli apostoli 
suscipi, licet plerique earn vel Barnabae vel dementis arbitrentur.) 
"And it little matters whose it is," he adds, "since it is daily 
sanctioned by the reading of the churches, (et nihil interesse cujus 
sit, quam . . . quotidie ecclesiarum lectione celebretur.)" "For 
if the custom of the Latins does not receive it into the number of 
the canonical Scriptures, {quod si earn Latinorum consuetudo non 
recipit inter Scripturas canonicas,) yet we receive it, (et tamen 
nos earn suscipimus.) "We must not follow in this the custom of 
these times, (among the Eomans,) but rather the authority of 
ancient authors, (nequaquam hujus temporis consuetudinem, sed 
veterum scriptorum auctoritatem sequentes.)"! 

Therefore it is generally believed that it was especially the tes- 
timony of Jerome, as well as that of Augustin, which was the 
instrument made use of by God to bring back the Eoman church 
from the grave error into which it had fallen for so long a time 
on the subject of this epistle, and to restore this sacred book to 
its place in the canon of that church. 

298. It would be difficult to present a witness in this age 
among the Orientals more worthy of our confidence than Atha- 
nasius, both from his place in the universal Church, and from his 
knowledge and discernment in Christian antiquities. This father, 
as we have said, (Prop. 65,) united with all the churches of the 
East in revering the Epistle to the Hebrews. We have read in 
his " catalogue of the Scriptures held as canonical and received as 

1 See also his Epistle 125 to Evagrius. " The Epistle to the Hebrews," he says, 
" which all the Greeks receive, and some of the Latins, (quam omnes Graeci recepi- 
nnt, et nonnulli Latinorum.)" 



THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 



313 



divine," (to KavovL^opueva teal irapahoOevTa re Oela eivai /3t/3\ia,) 
these express words, " of Paul the apostle — there are fourteen 
epistles, (TIavKov airoaroXov iTTLcrroXal Se/arre<T<xape?.) " He enu- 
merates them, and puts the Epistle to the Hebrews in the tenth 
place, before his four pastoral epistles. 

299. We can also cite equally in this age Titus of Botsra in 
362, the Council of Laodicea in 367, Epiphanius in 368, Basil 
the Great in 370, Gregory of Nazianzus in 370, Gregory of Nyssa 
and St Ephreni the Syrian in 371, Diodorus of Tarsus in 378, 
Amphilochius of Iconium in 380, Theodoras of Mopsuestia in 394, 
and Chrysostom in 398. We learn from Epiphanius (Haeres., 69) 
and from Theodoret 1 that in their time, out of the pale of the 
Church, this epistle, on account of the striking testimony it bore 
to the divinity of Jesus Christ, was rejected by certain antitrinita- 
rian heretics. " It is not to be wondered at/' (davfiaaTov ov&ev,) 
says this latter father, "if men tainted with the Arian malady 
(rrjv apeiavifcrjv el^Se^d/xevoc voaov) rave on the subject of the 
apostolic Scriptures, wishing to separate from them the Epistle to 
the Hebrews, and calling it illegitimate, (yoOov ;) for if they dare 
to raise their voice against our God and Saviour, will they not 
dare to raise it against the most devoted and loud-sounding 
heralds of the truth? (rwv evvocov avrov teal /jueydkocpcovcov tj}s 
a\r]6eia<; KrjpvKcov.) " 

But we ascend to the third century. 

Section Thied. 

WITNESSES OF THE EAST IN THE THIED CENTUEY. 

300. Without stopping at Dionysius of Alexandria, 2 and at the 
Council of Antioch, who equally acknowledged the Epistle to the 
Hebrews as written by Paul, we cannot do better for this period 
than first of all to consult Eusebius, who distinguished himself 
already towards the end of the century, but who rather belongs to 
the next, and the great Origen, who begins the third century, and 
who, still much more learned, consecrated his powers and his life 
to the study of the Scriptures. 

1 Interpret. Ep. ad Heb., Proem. Opp., torn, iii., p. 541 . 
- Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., v., 11. 



THE SECOND-FIRST CANON. 



In the twenty-fifth chapter of his third book, Eusebius does not 
hesitate to class in the canon of uncontroverted books all the four- 
teen epistles of Paul, without excepting the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
"The fourteen epistles of Paul," he says again, (in his third 
chapter,) " are evident and certain, (irpo&rjkoc kclI aatyeis ;) but it 
will not be just to conceal the fact that some have rejected the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, saying that it was disputed by the church 
of the Eomans ae not being Paul's. ( f/ Ort <y e pJr)v rtvh rjderr/- 
kckjl rrjv 7rpo? 'Eftpalovs, 7r/30? t?}? 'Pco/jualcov eV/cX^crta? a>? /jltj 
Uavkov ovcrav avrrjv avriXeyeadai (pTjaavre^, ov hiKatov ayvoelv.)" 

Origen, almost a hundred years before, received it so fully for 
Divine, that he composed homilies to expound it to the people ; 
and the following are his words elsewhere, in a passage preserved 
by Eusebius, (Hist. Eccl, vi. 25 :) — " The style of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews has not the character of simplicity peculiar to this apostle, 
who calls himself a man rude of speech ; but the epistle is more 
Hellenic in the construction of the style, {avvQkau rr}? \e£e&>? 
eXKrjviK(£>repa) as every one who can judge of the difference of 
style will confess. But, on the other hand, the thoughts of this 
epistle are admirable, {Qav\iacria^ and not inferior (pv Beurepa) 
to the scriptures universally recognised as apostolic ; and this any 
one will grant (avfjL(f)r)craL) to be true who has devoted himself to 
apostolic reading. And I will declare what my opinion is/' he 
adds ; " the thoughts are those of the apostle ; but the phrase- 
ology and composition are those of a person who has recalled the 
apostolic instructions, or who has written notes on the things said 
by his teacher. If, then, any church regards this epistle as Paul's, 
let it be held in honour for so doing, {evhoKipuenco /cal eirl tovtco ;) 
for it is not without reason (el/crj) that the men of old time have 
handed it down as Paul's. Who, then, was the writer % God knows 
the truth, (to fiev aKrjOes @eo? olSev •) but the report has come 
to us, (fjSe eh r)p>a$ ^>9daacra laropla,) on the part of some, that 
Clement, who became bishop of the Eomans, was the author; 
and of others, that it was Luke who wrote the Gospel and the 
Acts." 

Such, then, was the state of opinion in the East respecting this 
holy epistle, if we may judge by Origen and Eusebius. All held 
it to be divine ; and almost all believed it to be Paul's. This was 



THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 315 



the opinion, they tell us, of all the men of ancient times. These 
persons had handed it down as written by Paul ; but some con- 
temporaries of Origen were led, in no degree for historical reasons, 
but only on account of the elegance of the style, to believe that 
Paul could not have been the immediate author, and that he had 
suggested the thoughts to one of his fellow-labourers — to Clement, 
for example, or to Luke. And yet Origen only gives this as a 
report that had reached him, on the part of some, and not as an 
opinion which he had adopted. 

Section Poukth. 
witnesses of the east in the second centuey. 

301. Having reached the second century, we can call in one of 
the most powerful testimonies, in the person of Clement of Alex- 
andria, the most learned and influential man of his day, who 
taught with extraordinary success in the most learned city of the 
East. Born only forty years after the death of John, he said of 
himself, that "by his age he was near the apostolic times," 
{Strom., i., 1 ;) so that when, like Origen, he supported his testi- 
mony by that of the ancients, these ancients could be no other 
than the contemporaries of the apostles themselves. He brought, 
very unwisely, no doubt, the pretensions and habits of his philo- 
sophy into the study of Christianity ; but even this disposition, 
though it might injure the purity of his faith, perhaps would 
insure more independence in his judgment on the Epistle to the 
Hebrews. Here we have his own words, as preserved to us by 
Eusebius, (Hist. Eccl, iv, 14 :) — 

" The Epistle to the Hebrews is the work of Paul. He com- 
posed it himself in Hebrew, and St Luke translated it into Greek. 1 
Hence the resemblance of his style to that of the Acts. And if 
Paul did not place at the head of his epistle either his name of 
Paul, or his title of apostle, it was for a good reason. He addressed 
himself to men who were very prejudiced against him. It was, 
then, a point of prudence to abstain from naming himself, in 
order not to deter any of them from undertaking to read it. More- 
over, (and this is what the blessed presbyter said, 6 fia/cdpios 

1 We shall refute the supposition in the sequel. 



316 



THE SECOND-FIRST CANON. 



irpeafivTepos^ considering that our Lord, as far as He was the 
Apostle or Messenger of the Most High, had been especially sent 
to the people of the Hebrews, {airearaXri!) and the Epistle to the 
Hebrews is the only one in the New Testament in which he is 
called by that name, (Heb. iii. 1,) it was becoming that Paul 
should abstain from giving himself, in his epistle, the title of 
Apostle of the Hebrews, whether from modesty, or from reverence 
towards the Lord, or because he was simply himself the apostle of 
the Gentiles!' 

302. This testimony of Clement of Alexandria, like that of 
Origen, is not only of great weight for any one who considers the 
character of these men of God, their learning, their travels, their 
proximity of time and place in reference to the epistle ; but it is 
still more weighty, when we think of their prejudices as to the 
nature of its style, and its too Hellenic elegance. The historical 
evidence must have had irresistible force for these men to feel 
constrained, by the unanimous tradition of the churches of the 
East, to acknowledge that, notwithstanding, the epistle was Paul's. 

Moreover, it has been said, that the testimony of Clement was 
that of the Church of Alexandria, founded by the same Mark 2 
whom Peter (1 Ep. v. 1 3) calls his " son," and whom Paul (2 Tim. 
iv. 11, Col. iv. 6) sent for when he was a prisoner at Rome, be- 
cause "he was profitable to him," he said, "for the ministry/' 3 
This testimony hence becomes, as it were, the combined deposition 
of Mark, Peter, and Paul. 

303. We might class among the witnesses in the East during 
the second century, as we are speaking in the name of the churches 
of Alexandria, Smyrna, and Ephesus, first of all Pantcenus, the 
celebrated missionary of eastern nations, and the teacher of Cle- 
ment of Alexandria ; next, Ignatius and Polycarp, who, without 
expressly mentioning this epistle, allude to it very clearly ; and, 
lastly, Irenaeus himself, who, before his settlement in Gaul, (in 
178,) belonged to Asia by his education. In fact, though this 

1 It has been thought that Clement was speaking here of the pious Pantsenus, 
the apostle of India, who was living at Alexandria in 216, where he had estab- 
lished a school, and where Clement himself was one of his disciples. 

2 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., v., 10; Jerome, De Viris Illustr., xxxv. 

3 Irenseus, Adv. Haeres., iii., 1. 



THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 



317 



father has not clearly cited the epistle in his work on heresies, 1 he 
has made mention of it, according to what Eusebius tells us, and 
has cited certain passages in one of his works that is now lost. 2 
But we prefer coming to the very age of the apostles. 

Section Fifth, 
witnesses of the east in the first centtjky. 

304. In the first century we shall find, not in the East only, 
but also in the West, proof in abundance of the admission, already 
begun, of this epistle into the canon of Scripture, at Eome equally 
with Babylon. On the one hand, we see it translated in the first 
century into Syriac in the most ancient of the versions — the 
Peshito ; — and, on the other, we can cite in its favour two unex- 
ceptionable witnesses, both contemporaries of Paul, and both 
martyrs. It was not without strong reasons that Clement of 
Alexandria and Origen had said that in their time the epistle had 
in its favour "ancient men." Who could be "ancient men" to 
them, unless the contemporaries of the apostles, or their immediate 
successors ? These two testimonies which are left us to cite are, 
first, that of Clement of Pcome, who, in his letter to the Corinthians, 
has made such frequent citations from our epistle, 3 as we have 
already shewn in our rapid analysis of it. He had it evidently in 
his hands when writing his letter. He does not name the author ; 
but he cites whole passages from it, and paraphrases many others, 
and this fact, so prominent throughout his letter, has been already 
noticed by Eusebius and Jerome. 

Our second witness is Simon Peter himself. 

The Second Epistle of Peter, written a short time before his 
martyrdom, was addressed by him, as the apostle of the circum- 

1 Haeres., ii., 55, (Heb. i. 3;) iii., 6, (Heb. iii. 5;) iv., 20, (Heb. x. 1 ;) iv., 30, 
v., 5, (Heb. xi. 5.) 

2 Hist. Eccl., v., 20. It is in his book, AiaXe^SUV oici^oiw iv u> rr\q rrzog 
'Efizcu'ov; iriGTc'/.rg . . . ftvfifionvsi, lr,ra rt\a e% (aur^:) TaoaCi/Xivoi. 

3 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., iii., 38. Clem, ad Cor., (Prop. 258,) ch. xxxvi., (Heb. 
i. 3-5, 7, 33- 15, viii. 1-3;) ch. xvii., (Heb. iii. 2;) ch. xxi., (Heb. iv. 12;) ch. xxvii., 
(Heb. vi. 18;) ch. xxiii., (Heb. x. 37;) ch. ix., (Heb. xi. 5, 8, 31;) ch. x., (Heb. xi. 
8;) ch. xii., (Heb. xi. 31;) ch. xviii., (Heb. iii. 2, xi. 2, 4, 5, 37, 39;) ch. lvi., (Heb. 
xii. 6;) ch. xliii., (Heb. iii. 5.) 



313 



THE SECOND-FIEST CANON. 



cision, to the converted Hebrews. 1 He there speaks to them of 
another letter which Paul must have addressed to them, (iii. 15.) 
"As our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom 
given unto him, hath written to you, as also in all his epistles/' 
Paul, then, had written to these converted Hebrews. There must 
have existed somewhere a letter of his addressed to the Hebrews, 
and received as such by the churches of the circumcision ; for it 
must be observed that Peter takes care to distribute Paul's letters 
into two classes — that which he had written to the Hebrews, and 
" his other epistles!' This letter of Paul to the Hebrews could 
only be that to which all the churches of the East had given that 
title, and which they placed in the rank of his thirteen other 
letters. 

305. Thus, then, the numerous testimonies, unanimous and 
constant, throughout the East in favour of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews go back in the Church to the highest antiquity. They 
can be traced without interruption or contradiction to the middle 
of the fifth century, and we have reckoned in this interval more 
than forty fathers among the Greeks who have received this 
epistle as Paul's. If two or three among them speak of certain 
doubts, it is not in their own name. Eaised by others among the 
Latins, and slowly raised, these doubts were rejected by all the 
Orientals. 

Section Sixth, 
testimonies of the west. 

306. It was otherwise among the churches of the West, but 
only setting out from the first half of the third century. After 
having been taught to reverence the Epistle to the Hebrews 
during the whole of the first century, the second, and the first 
years of the third, they ceased to render so constant a testimony 
to it as the churches of the East, and even went so far as almost 
all to give it up entirely, through the influence of Rome, for a 
very long time. 

307. We have seen that, at the end of the first century, Rome 
furnished us, in the person of Clement, its bishop, with an unex- 
ceptionable witness of the belief which was then professed there. 

1 2 Pet. i. 1 ; compare with 1 Pet. i. 1. 



THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 



319 



The same was the case with the other churches of the West during 
the whole course of the second century ; for we have seen that 
Irenseus, bishop of Lyons, quoted it in one of his writings, 1 and 
if at a later period this same author, in his book against heresies, 
avoided the express mention of it, it has been supposed that, 
occupying an eminent position in the West, he thought it his duty 
to avoid furnishing arguments to the Montanists by quoting a 
book by which they supported their errors. So again, in Africa, 
Tertullian, who was a Montanist, had first of all alleged very ex- 
pressly the Epistle to the Hebrews in the twentieth chapter of his 
treatise, Be Pudicitid, composed, according to Cave, in the latter 
part of the second century. He there cites the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, and, in its whole length, the passage in which the 
writer declares that men who have fallen away after receiving 
certain illumination, "cannot be renewed again to repentance." 
He attributes the epistle to Barnabas, "the man whom Paul 
associated with himself," he says ; " that companion of the apostles, 
taught by them, and teaching with them/' (alicujus apostolorum 
comitis ; — quern Paulus juxta se posuerit, . . . qui ab apostolis 
didicet, et cum apostolis docuit.) To these monuments of regard 
for this epistle which the Latin Church professed during the two 
first centuries and the first half of the third, we can now add a 
new important testimony, which has just been furnished us by the 
appearance of a long-lost work by Hippolytus the martyr "On 
Heresies." 2 This father, as is well known, though he came from 
the East, resided for a long time in Italy in the diocese of Rome. 
This long-lost work was printed at Oxford in 1851, very shortly 
after the discovery of the original. And as in 1628 the unex- 
pected discovery of the Epistle of Clement of Rome changed the 
judgments formed by biblical critics respecting the authority 
which the Epistle to the Hebrews had in the first century in the 
Western Church, so in our own time the appearance of the work 
of Hippolytus, who cites the Epistle to the Hebrews as having 
apostolic authority, 13 has enlarged our views of the approval given 
to this scripture by the Western churches till the middle of the 

1 This was, as we have said, his (Bifik/ov ri dia,\i%euv <3/a£ojwv. Eusebius, 
Hist. Eccl., v., 26. 2 Kara rao&f u'/p'iff/wv 'iXiyy^g. 

3 See Bunsen's Hippolytus; 4 vols.; London, 1852. Vol. i., p. 127. 



320 



THE SECOND-FIKST CANON. 



third century. The death of Hippolytus is placed about the year 
240. 

308. It was at Rome, about the beginning of the third century, 
that the same presbyter Caius, who is reputed to have started the 
first doubts respecting the Apocalypse, also was the first to express 
similar doubts respecting the Epistle to the Hebrews in a treatise 
against the Montanists. From this period it seems that the credit 
of this scripture declined among the Latins, so that Tertullian, 
who, before the attacks of Caius, had quoted it freely, referred to 
it with a kind of reserve in his subsequent writings, in deference 
to the Latin Church. This is a remark of Hug. The canon of 
Muratori, of which the date is uncertain, though attributed by 
many to Caius, is certainly posterior to Marcion ; it does not con- 
tain the Epistle to the Hebrews. 1 And after Tertullian, Cyprian, 
in the same locality, did not receive it. He names seven churches 
to which Paul wrote, and does not speak of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews. 2 From that time the Latins expressed themselves to 
the same purport, till towards the end of the following century. 

309. The cause of this deviation of the Western churches, as 
we have already said, is not unknown. The Montanist contro- 
versy had first suggested it to Caius ; and when, half a century 
later, the Novatianists renewed the doctrine, and the rigorous dis- 
cipline of Montanus, supporting it, as he did, on this scripture, as 
we learn from Jerome, Augustin, and Epiphanius, the Latins, 
desirous of combating them more advantageously, were induced 
to reject it. And we have already heard Philastrius tell us ex- 
pressly, that the liturgical use of this epistle ceased in some 
churches, on account of what it says of repentance, (vi. 4, &c.,) 
and on account of the Novatians ; 3 but he classes these notions 
and usages among the heresies of certain persons, (haeresis quo- 
rumdam de Epistola Pauli ad Hebraeos.) 

310. Yet it must be understood that this late and temporary 
opposition of the Latins, so far from weakening our faith in the 

1 See Propp. 193, 198. 

2 Cyprian, Testim. ad. Judaeos, i., 20; De Exhortatione Martyr, cap. ii. 
Propp. 62, 63. 

3 De Haeresibus, 40; Bibl. Patrum Max., v., p. 711. "De poenitentia autem 
propter Novatianos." 



THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 



321 



canonicity of this book, ought rather to serve for its confirmation, 
since it proves to us the inability of all its assailants to bring 
against it any historical fact, any opposite tradition, or any argu- 
ment of importance. If a work of Cicero were presented to us, 
which all the writers of the same age had unanimously attributed 
to him, and which all of the next century had always included in 
the collection of his works, we should not make a difficulty of be- 
lieving it to be his, even if we should be told of persons far from 
Rome, and three centuries after him, who, without giving good 
reasons, or disputing the existence of the testimony of antiquity, 
had simply raised against the book the same objections which one 
of our contemporaries might make in the present day. 

311. But, whatever might be the opposition of the Latins during 
the last half of the third century, and the first half of the follow- 
ing, our epistle, which had never ceased to be received by all the 
Greeks, began anew, from the middle of this fourth century, to be 
received in the West. In 354, Hilary of Poitiers regarded it as 
Paul's. He was followed by Ambrose, bishop of Milan ; by 
Philastrius, bishop of Brescia, and by many others ; until, at last, 
Jerome and Augustin, better informed than their contemporaries, 
enlightened them on this question by appealing to the historic 
proofs, to the testimony of the Orientals, and to the authority of 
all Christian antiquity. It was, probably, their influence which 
caused it to be received as Paul's by the Council of Carthage, in 
307. From the fifth century, all the churches, to our own day, 
have received it. 

Section Seventh, 
recapitulation of these testimonies. 

312. From all these facts we conclude : — 

(1.) That the canonicity of the epistle, immediately after its 
publication, was acknowledged in the West, as well as in the East 
— at Pome, as at Jerusalem. 

(2.) That the same testimony was rendered later, without in- 
terruption, throughout the East, among Syriac Christians and 
Greek Christians. 

(3.) That this recognition continued among the western churches 
during the second century and the first half of the third. 

x 



322 



THE SECOND-FIRST CANON. 



(4.) That if the Latin Christians, and especially those of Rome, 
hesitated in reference to it, or even refused to receive it, during the 
latter half of the third century and the first half of the fourth, 
they at last came over unanimously to the primitive testimony of 
the universal church, which had been the constant and invariable 
testimony of the churches of the East. 

(5.) That the Church of Eome has varied, and gravely erred on 
this important point ; and that if, for 1500 years, it has remained 
obedient to the authority of the constant testimony of the East, it, 
nevertheless, maintained on this subject (to employ the language of 
Tertullian, Augustin, and Philastrius, against those who rejected any 
of the books of the second-first canon) a heresy of two centuries. 1 

(6.) That if this long-retained error, before the epoch of the de- 
finitive settlement of the canon, has no importance for the question 
of its providential preservation, because the churches were not to be 
entirely unanimous on the whole entire canon till that epoch, yet 
the fact is of crushing weight against the pretensions of a Church 
which styles itself the judge of controversies and of the truth. 

(7.) That this same Church errs at the present day, if not more 
gravely, at least more irrationally, in assuming, in spite of such 
manifest facts, to be the infallible depository of the Scriptures for 
all other churches, and in repeating, after Gregory VII., 2 " that no 
chapter of any book in the Bible can be held to be canonical 
without the authority of the sovereign pontiff/' 

(8.) That what Christianity owes to the Church of Eome in 
this matter is, that it has twice made war on the canon, and twice 
broken on this point the unity of the Church ; first of all, by re- 
jecting for two centuries an epistle which had been recognised by 
herself for the two preceding centuries, and which she has recog- 
nised afresh from the end of the fourth and the beginning of the 
fifth ; next, in presuming alone, ten centuries later, to introduce 
the Apocryphal books into the canon of the Old Testament, An 
spite of the strong remonstrances of all the rest of Christendom, 
which, while causing them to be read publicly, had always rejected 
them for fifteen centuries both in the East and the West. 

1 The two former apply to the rejection of the Apocalypse; the third to that 
of the Epistle to the Hebrews. (See Propp. 282, 302.) 

2 See the Annales of Baronius for the year 1076. 



PAULINE ATJTHOESHIP OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 



323 



(9.) That the infallibility assumed by Rome, as the patrimony 
of the apostle Simon Peter, is already condemned by the single 
fact that it has not been able to guard a scripture which the 
same Simon Peter had expressly recommended as making a part 
of the sacred oracles, and which had been recommended also a very 
short time after by that Clement whom it has made the second, 
or third, or fourth of its own bishops. 1 

(10.) That, very far from giving authority to our canon of the 
New Testament, the Church of Rome has received its own from 
the Greek Church, (at least as far as concerns the Epistle to the 
Hebrews,) and that it has not been owing to it that we have not 
lost throughout the "West this holy scripture. 

(11.) Lastly, that the authority of the canon as to the New 
Testament is founded neither on Rome, which, by its own confes- 
sion, has gravely varied and erred respecting it, nor on any par- 
ticular church, nor on any provincial council, nor on any universal 
council, but only on the unanimous, unpremeditated, involuntary, 
and providential consent of all Christendom on this subject. For, 
with enormous divergences on every other subject, we see at the 
present day throughout the world all churches, good and bad, 
kept by God in unity on this one point ; as we see, on the other 
hand, the whole ancient nation of Israel, and all the modern Jews, 
remain equally in unity respecting the Old Testament, because the 
oracles of God were confided to them for the Old, as they are to 
us for the New. But we can only glance at this thought here, 
since it is out of the circle of our present investigations. 

Section Eighth, 
the pauline 2 authorship of this epistle. 

313. The Pauline authorship of this epistle must be carefully 
distinguished from its canonicity in studying the history of the 

1 The second, according to Jerome; the third, according to Augustin; the 
fourth, according to Iren;eus. See Hefele, Patr. Apostol. Opera, p. 21. Tubing., 
1847. 

2 On this subject the reader may consult the first volume of Moses Stuart; the 
Theses of Professor La Harpe, (Toulouse, 1S32;) the Introduction of Hug, and 
that of Guericke, (1854 ;) and Fr. Spanheim, De Auctore Epistolae ad Hebr. 
Exercitationes, Heidelberg, 1659. (He maintains the Pauline authorship.) 



324 



THE SECOND-FIRST CANON. 



canon. The apostolicity of a book, indeed, would not alone be a 
reason of its canonicity, because all the writings, discourses, and 
actions of an apostle or a prophet were not necessarily nor con- 
tinually inspired. Inspiration was a miraculous gift, (^dpicr/na,) 
and miraculous gifts were intermittent according as the Spirit 
descended on the men of God. A scripture was infallible and 
Divine when the Spirit of God had caused it to be written, and 
only then ; and the Spirit of God caused it to be written when He 
saw good, whether the writer was an apostle, as Paul or Peter, or 
whether he was not an apostle, but only a prophet, as Luke or 
Mark. 

Many fathers of the first ages believed this epistle to be Divine, 
without believing it to be Paul's ; and many modern theologians, 
on other accounts worthy of regard, have thought it right to 
apply this distinction to the Epistle to the Hebrews. In our 
opinion they are mistaken as to fact, but not as to principle. 
Thus our two greatest reformers, Luther and Calvin, spoke at a 
time when this subject was less studied, and, particularly, when 
Clement's epistle had not been recovered, who, at Borne, and in 
the very age of the apostles, bears so clear a testimony to this 
holy scripture. 1 Luther attributed it to Apollos, without sup- 
porting this gratuitous conjecture by any historical argument. 
Calvin himself, without attempting any hypothesis, wrote at the 
head of his commentary, " Ego ut Paulum agnoscam auctorem, 
adduci nequeo. Yet for myself," he adds, "I receive it without 
any difficulty among the apostolic epistles ; and I doubt not that 
it is only by a device of Satan that some persons were formerly 
found disposed to exclude it from the number of authentic books/' 
Beza also says, in the first note of his commentary, " Let the judg- 
ments of men remain free on this point ; only (he adds) let us all 
agree to this, that this epistle was really dictated by the Holy 
Spirit." 

314. Many of the fathers who were most attached to the 
canonicity of this epistle, (such as Dionysius and Clement of 
Alexandria, Euthalius, Theodoret, Theophylact, and Jerome,) have 

1 It was only in 1628 that Cyril Lucar sent from Constantinople to Charles I. 
of England the ancient Alexandrian manuscript of the Scriptures, which, happily 
was found to contain the long-lost epistle of Clement. 



PAULIXE AUTHORSHIP OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 



325 



yet supposed, on account of its elegance, that it was composed in 
Hebrew by Paul, but translated into Greek by Luke or Barnabas. 
This is only a hypothesis. It does not directly affect its canonicity; 
but we reject it, because there are three powerful reasons which 
unite to impugn it. 

(1.) Those persons who speak of this Hebrew original have 
never pointed out any one who has seen it. 

(2.) The superior elegance of this epistle may be accounted for, 
as we shall presently shew. 

(3.) It would be an historic error to imagine that Hebrew, in 
Paul's days, was better adapted than Greek to the religious wants 
of the whole Jewish people. Greek was universally understood, 
even in Jerusalem ; it was spoken in that city about four centuries 
before;" 1 and the Jews of "the dispersion," who made use of it 
throughout the East, often knew nothing of Hebrew. Thus we 
see that the greater part of the Christian Jews in Jerusalem had 
separate synagogues to celebrate their worship in Greek. 

(4.) Nothing in this epistle indicates a translation ; everything, 
on the contrary, bears the impress of originality. 

(5.) Paranomasias, that is to say, allusions founded on the 
similarity and vocal affinity of expressions, abound in it, and 
betray inevitably an original writing. 2 Particularly, Calvin re- 
marks, " What is said of the nature of a testament in the ninth 
chapter can be taken from no other source than a Greek w T ord." 

(6.) The comments of the author on the passages he cites from 
the Old Testament lead also to the same conclusion ; for they 
attest that the citations have been taken, not from the Hebrew 
original, but from the Septuagint version. 3 

315. Though many fathers and many scholars, while admitting 
the divinity of this scripture, have wished to find another author 
than Paul for it, we shall be able, on the contrary, to establish by 
strong arguments that it was indeed our apostle who wrote it. 

1 The city mibmittcd to Alexander the Great in the year 332 B.C., and the 
epistle was written about a.d. 64. 

2 See, in the Greek, Heb. ii. 7, 8, (compared with Ps. viii.,) v. 8, 14, vii. 13, 19, 
ix. 10, x. 34, xk 37, xiii. 14. 

3 See Heb. x. 4, 5, compared with Ps. xl. 7; viii. 8, ix. 14, 22, compared with 
Jer. xxxi. 31, 32, and other passages quoted in Dr Owen's learned exposition, (5th 
cxercitation.) 



326 



THE SECOND- FIRST CANON. 



(1.) Nothing has ever been alleged against this testimony of 
history excepting presumptions and conjectures. 

(2.) The expressions of the epistle about Timothy can belong, it 
appears, to no one but Paul. " Know ye that our brother Timothy 
is set at liberty, with whom, if he come shortly, I will see you," 
(xiii. 23.) Now Paul had already associated himself with Timothy 
in seven other of his epistles, 1 besides writing two to him. He 
made him his companion in his voyage to Jerusalem, (Acts xx. 4.) 
He often speaks of him elsewhere, as here, as "his brother and 
fellow-labourer." 2 He even calls him "his son," (1 Tim. i. 2,) 
while no other person in the New Testament presents, even dis- 
tantly, this character of intimacy with Timothy. 

(3.) The author of this epistle speaks of his " bonds," (x. 34,) 
and Paul was in bonds when this epistle was written. 

(4.) The author tells the Hebrews that he hopes to visit them 
soon, ("with whom, if he comes shortly, I will see you.") Paul 
was then on the point of being released from confinement. 

(5.) The author salutes them in the name of " the brethren of 
Italy," (xiii. 21,) and Paul was then in Italy. 

(6.) The epistle must have been written during the reign of 
Nero, and in Paul's lifetime, that is, before the year 68 or 65. In 
fact, 

It represents the temple at Jerusalem as still standing, and 
its worship as still celebrated — the last war of the Eomans 
against the Jews as about to commence : " As ye see the 
day approaching," (x. 25 ;) (but that terrible day had not yet 
dawned.) 

Timothy is still living, and inclined to leave Italy, in order to 
visit the Hebrews with the author of this letter. 

The letter is cited by Clement, the companion of Paul, (Phil, 
iv. 3,) in the epistle which this father wrote to the Corinthians in 
the name of the Church of Eome. And notice, on this fact, the 
reasoning of Eusebius himself. "Clement, in his letter to the 
Corinthians," he says, " introduces many thoughts from the Epistle 
to the Hebrews, and even with the peculiar expressions of this 

1 Phil. ? 1 • 2 Cor. i 1 ; Col. i. 1 ; 1 Thess. i. 1 ; 2 Thess. i. 1; Rom. xvi. 21 ; 

Philem. 1. 

2 2 Cor. i. 1 ; Philem. 1 ; Col. i. 1. 



PAULINE AUTHOKSHIP OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBEEW8. o2.7 



epistle, indicating evidently by this that it was not to him a new 
work/'l 

Lastly, this letter is cited even by the apostle Peter, who is said 
to have suffered martyrdom in the same year as Paul ; for we have 
seen that in his second epistle, written to the same persons as the 
first, (2 Pet. iii. 1,) he reminds them that Paul had written a letter 
to them, — "As our beloved brother Paul also, according unto the 
wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you/' (2 Pet. iii. 15.) 

(7.) All the weight of historic testimony is in favour of the 
Pauline authorship of this epistle. It is certain that, being ad- 
dressed especially to the church at Jerusalem, the mother of all 
the rest, and for thirty-six years the centre of Israelitish Chris- 
tianity, it was read from the first as Paul's in all the assemblies of 
the East. We have already seen the testimonies of the East to its 
canonicity for four centuries. But these same fathers, while speak- 
ing sometimes of doubts entertained among the Latins, not only 
believed Paul to be the author, but said that they received this 
belief from the ancient bishops who preceded them. Cyril of 
Jerusalem, in the fourth century, stating it to be his, declares that 
such was the tradition " of the apostles and ancient bishops, the 
presidents of the churches," (Prop. 59.) Jerome likewise attests 
that this epistle " ab omnibus retro ecclesiasticis Graeci sermonis 
scriptoribus quasi Pauli apostoli suscipi." Athanasius, the 
Council of Laodicea, Basil, Epiphanius, Gregory of Nazianzus, 
Gregory of Nyssa, Ephrem the Syrian, Chrysostom, and many 
others, give the same testimony. Eusebius declares it to be 
Paul's, saying, at the same time, that the church of the Romans 
disputed the fact, supposing that Clement of Rome might have 
been the translator. Theodoret cites Eusebius as having said 
that all the ancients believed it teas written by Paul. He says 
that the Arians had begun to call it in question, on account of 
the testimony it bears to the divinity of Jesus Christ ; but he 
adds, that it ivas read in the churches from apostolic times? 
Origen, 3 while believing it to be Paul's, cites, nevertheless, in 

1 Hist. Eccl., iii , 38. IciZsarurci rraz'tarrtGiv on /ir} \ihv h^uoyii rb aiiy- 

2 Arg. in Epist. ad Hcbraeos. Opp., torn, iii., p. 341. Halle, 1 70S-1 774. 

3 Origen, who quotes the Epistle to the Hebrews more than two hundred 



328 



THE SECOND-FIEST CANON. 



order to explain its great elegance, suppositions, the report of 
which (he says) had reached him,l respecting the part that this 
or the other apostolic man had taken in its composition ; but yet 
he takes care to remind his readers, that it is not a light thing 
(el/erf) that ancient men have transmitted it as Paul's to the men 
of his time. And, lastly, Clement of Alexandria, in the second 
century, tells us expressly that it is the work of Paul, (IlavXov 
jjuev elval facri,) though thinking that perhaps it was written in 
Hebrew by the apostle, and was translated by Luke into elegant 
Greek. 

(8.) Lastly, the very numerous marks of resemblance between 
this epistle and the other compositions of Paul, equally attest that 
he is its author. Many able critics have exhibited these marks 
with great distinctness. We may see them more closely in Span- 
heim, Braun, Carpsovius, Lardner, Macknight, La Harpe, Moses 
Stuart, and Tholuck ; and Keuss himself, 2. who does not ascribe 
this epistle to Paul, has had the candour to express himself in the 
following terms on these analogies : — 

" The resemblances which our epistle presents to the Pauline 
modes of expression are so numerous and striking, that the readi- 
ness with which it is ascribed to Paul is not at all surprising. 
They consist in a series of terms equally familiar to the two 
authors, as well as, in the main, of the same doctrinal ideas. 

" We shall proceed to point out some of these resemblances : — 

"Bursts of feeling, expressed in language very concise, and 
familiar to St Paul. 

" Elliptical expressions, which must be completed by what goes 
before and what follows, 

"Abrupt transitions to subordinate subjects, with a quick 
return to the principal topic. 3 

" Answers addressed to the thoughts of the reader, and apply- 
ing to objections which are not expressed. 

" A hortatory and moral conclusion of the epistle, from the 

times, (Kirchhofer, Quellens^mmlung, &c., p, 244,) repeatedly asserts that it was 
by Paul. 

1 E/'c 7][x>ag <pQu6ot.(Sa igroola. 

2 Hist, de la Th^ologie Chretienne au Siecle Apostolique, torn, ii., p. 550. 

3 See i. 2-4, iii. 7, 11, 14, iv. 2. 



PAULINE AUTHORSHIP OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 



329 



eleventh chapter, such as Paul was accustomed to make in his 
other epistles. 

" Exhortations very similar to those made by Paul elsewhere. 

"Jewish interpretations of Scripture which are only found in 
St Paul's writings. 

" Doctrines that none of the other inspired writers have men- 
tioned : the mediation and intercession of the Saviour ; 1 the title 
of Mediator given by Paul alone to Jesus Christ ; 2 Christ pre- 
senting His sacrifice in heaven, and exercising His priesthood only 
in heaven. 

"Frequent resemblances of style and expression between this 
epistle and the thirteen others of Paul ; — for example, the frequent 
use of the particle re; or, again, this passage, Heb. xiii. 5, com- 
pared with Eom. xii. 9, where we find two nominatives absolute, 
and besides a feminine noun in the nominative absolute, followed 
by a masculine participle in the nominative absolute, (rj aydirr) 
avvTTo/cpiTos, uTToarvyovpre^ . . .) a structure which is found 
nowhere else in the New Testament. 

" Take, as examples, again, the following passages : — ■ 
"Heb. ii. 4, compared with Eom. xv. 19; 2 Cor. xii. 12; and 
2 Thess. ii. 9; Heb. iii. 1, compared with Phil. iii. 14; Heb. 
v. ] 2, compared with 1 Cor. iii. 2 ; Heb. viii. 1, compared with 
Eph. i. 21 ; Heb. ix., x. 1, compared with Col. ii. 17; Heb. x. 33, 
compared with 1 Cor. iv. 9 ; Heb. xiii. 9, compared with Eph. 

iv. 11 ; Heb. xiii. 10, 11, compared with 1 Cor. ix. 13 ; Heb. xiii. 
20, 21, compared with Rom. xv. 33, xvi. 20; Phil. iv. 9 ; 1 Thess, 

v. 23; 2 Cor. xiii. 11." 

But what can our opponents set against all these arguments of 
criticism and history ? No historical testimony, only presumptions 
and hypotheses. These we shall proceed to answer. 

Section Ninth. 

OBJECTIONS. 

31(3. It is objected, in the first place, that Paul the apostle to 
the Gentiles was not the apostle of the Jews, and was not bound to 

1 Heb. iv. 15, 10, vii. 22, 25; Rom. viii. 24; C.il. iii. 19, 20. 

2 Heb. vii. 22, viii. 6, ix. 15, xii. 21; 1 Tim. ii. 5. 



330 



THE SECOND-FIKST CANON. 



write to them. But does he not say that he was the apostle of all, 
that "he might by all means save some?" (1 Cor ix. 19, 22.) Did 
he not in every city begin his ministry with the Hebrews ? Was 
he not " a Hebrew of the Hebrews ? " (Phil. iii. 5.) Was it not 
his " heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel that they might 
be saved ? " (Rom. x. 1.) Was he not " in great heaviness and 
continual sorrow " for the Hebrews, his " kinsmen according to 
the flesh V (ix. 2.) Had he not very recently gone up to the 
capital of the Hebrews to carry to his " nation the alms " of the 
churches? (Rom. xv. 25 ; Acts xxiv. 17.) Could he do otherwise 
(we ask, on the contrary) than write to them ? 

317. Paul, it is said, again, has not named himself in the epistle ; 
while he had always taken care to inscribe at the head of his 
thirteen letters his name and apostolic title. We reply — 

(1.) That he had manifest reasons of prudence, if not entirely 
to conceal his name, at least not to make it prominent. We have 
stated them elsewhere. 

(2.) That the book being rather a treatise than a letter, the 
author had not the same reasons for putting his name. 1 

(3.) That the book, whoever was the author, was written by a 
person who judged it desirable not to put his name. " And if any 
argues that for this reason it was not Paul's, (said Primasius, an 
African bishop of the sixth century,) it could not be any more 
by Barnabas, nor by Clement, nor by Luke, nor by any one 
else, since no one has put his name to it, {quod nullius nomine 
titulatur)^ 2 

(4.) Those Hebrew Christians to whom the letter was at first 
addressed certainly knew what hand had written it. Can we 
doubt it when we read the words, " Pray for us. I beseech you 
to do this, that I may be restored to you the sooner. Know ye 
that our brother Timothy is set at liberty ; with whom, if he come 
shortly, I will see you. Salute all them that have the rule over 
you, and all the saints. They of Italy salute you," (xiii. 18, 19, 
23, 24.) 

(5.) It is sufficiently evident that this letter would not have 

1 It is short for a treatise, and would be long for a letter, (303 verses.) The 
author, also, at the close, apologises for its brevity. 

2 Ad Hebraeos Praefatio, Lugduni, 1537, p. 473. 



PAULINE AUTHOESHIP OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 



331 



been read, from the first century in Jerusalem and in the assem- 
blies of the East, if the leaders of all these churches had not 
known the author. 

(6.) It was desirable that it should circulate among the believ- 
ing Hebrews, the Judaising Christians, and the unconverted 
Hebrews ; but it would have been imprudent to have placed at 
its head a name which would have made them reject it without 
examination. 

(7.) Lastly, we may say with Dr Wordsworth, 1 that if the 
name of Paul is not at its head, yet his farewell and his signature 
are at the end ; for the apostolic salutation which he was wont 
to use, was, as he said himself, his distinctive mark in all his 
letters. 2 " The salutation of Paul with my own hand, which is the 
token in every epistle ; so I write. The grace of our Lord J esus 
Christ be with you all ;" by which he means to say, that these 
words, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you," or 
their equivalent, were the formula of salutation which he took care 
to write with his own hand at the end of every letter. We know 
that he always dictated them, with the single exception of the 
Epistle to the Galatians. He contented himself with putting this 
token or signature. It was a token, he said himself, by which 
all his epistles might be recognised. But it must be carefully 
observed, that while this formula is read in all the thirteen other 
letters of Paul, it does not occur in any of the epistles written 
during his lifetime by any other of the apostles, and that we only 
see it employed, after his death, in the last verse of the Apocalypse, 
and in the epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians, and in 
the discourses of the fathers, who were eager to adopt it after him. 
But this mark, invariably and exclusively attached to all his letters, 
is equally so to the Epistle to the Hebrews, (xiii. 24, 26.) 

318. In the third place, it is objected that Paul said, that 
lie was "not taught the gospel by any man," (Cal. i. J, 11, 12, 
ii. G-15;) and shewed himself very jealous of the independence 
of his ministry. Could he then say of the salvation which he 
announced those words which are read in the third verse of the 
second chapter, " the salvation which first began to be spoken by 

1 On the Canon, p. 284. London, 1847. 

2 2 Thess. iii. 17; 1 Cor. xvi. 21 ; Col. iv. 18. 



332 



THE SECOND-FIEST CANON. 



the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him V 
We reply, that it was one of Paul's habits to employ the first 
person plural when he had only his readers in view ; so that no 
conclusion could be drawn in reference to his own person. Thus, 
for example, in the preceding part of the verse he had said, " How 
shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" Paul, in 
speaking of this danger, was thinking of his readers, and not of 
himself. And so again, when he said in the thirteenth chapter of 
Romans, (verse 11th,) "Now it is high time to awake out of 
sleep," he was not asleep himself, and had no idea of including 
himself in the we, which he employed simply as a communicative 
pronoun, (un pronom communicatif) Yet even as to Paul it 
would be true that the salvation " spoken by the Lord was con- 
firmed to him by those who heard it." 

319. But, lastly, the objection urged most strongly to prove 
that this epistle could not have been written by Paul is the classic 
purity of its language, the Hellenic finish of the composition. 

(1 .) Our answer to this is, that it was quite natural that the apostle 
on this solemn occasion should think it his duty to bestow more 
care on this writing, which formed a treatise rather than a letter, 
and which he addressed to all the Hebrew nation. He wished to 
exhibit to his people, in an attractive representation, the holy and 
majestic unity of the Divine revelations under the two economies 
— the innumerable relations of the Old Testament to the New — 
the beneficent and glorious light which the later manifestations of 
the Son of God shed upon Moses, the Psalms, and the Prophets. 
He developed to the Hebrews the importance and sublime mean- 
ing of their own cultus when explained by the gospel, the Divinity 
of the Messiah announced in their scriptures, His holy humanity 
and humiliation equally foretold, His apostleship, His royal priest- 
hood, His expiatory blood, and His ascension to the heavens ; in 
a word, the true Temple, the true Priest, the true Tabernacle, the 
true Victim, the true Passover, the true Holy of Holies, and like- 
wise the true faith of the true worshippers, and their true sacrifices 
of praise and oblation. 

(2.) There is not a writer who has not had, among his com- 
positions, some writing or other in which he has aimed to sur- 
pass himself, in the purity of its language, and the elevation of its 



PAULINE AUTHORSHIP OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 333 

style. Thus Cyprian, in his letter to Donatus ; thus Tertullian, in , 
his Apology ; thus Calvin, in his treatise on clemency, or in his 
epistle to Francis I. ; thus St Paul himself, in his letter to Phile- 
mon. 

(3.) Do we not know that the apostle, independently of his in- 
spiration, was, in respect of style, equal to his theme, both by edu- 
cation and genius? Was he not born, and was he not taught 
Greek literature, in the Greek colony of Tarsus, a city renowned 
for its culture? Was he not heard to cite, on many occasions, 
the Greek poets? (Acts xiii. 28 ; 1 Cor. xv. 33 ; Titus i. 12;) and 
does he not shew, in other parts of his writings, what he was able 
to do ? If he was, as he said, " a common man as to speech," 
(i$uoT7)s r(p Xoyco.) it w T as in his accent, and not in expression or 
thought. And, if he judged it wise to write letters to the Gen- 
tiles without preparation, he might also think it wise to address 
one to his own people in a composition more captivating and more 
studied. 

320. We must, then, conclude, from all these testimonies and 
facts, that Eusebius, at the beginning of the fourth century, very 
legitimately included our Epistle to the Hebrews in the first 
canon ; because it had been received for two centuries by all 
Christendom, both Eastern and Western, from its first appearance ; 
and because it had never ceased to be received by all the churches 
of the East. Yet while, like this father, putting it, according to 
our historical estimate, among the homologoumena, and in the 
first canon, we have thought proper to assign it and the Apoca- 
lypse a place by themselves, on account of the late opposition 
made for a time against it by the Latin Church only. Moreover, 
that church, which owned the authority of this sacred book during 
the first and second century, and then disowned it during the 
third and fourth, has ended by ranking it, for fourteen hundred 
years, in conformity with the universal Church. 

But we must now pass on to the second canon, or to the antile- 
gomena, which contain (as we have said) only 222 verses, a thirty- 
sixth of the New Testament ; and we shall establish their firm 
authenticity, like the first, by history, before proceeding to con- 
sider them under another point of view. 



BOOK IV. 

THE SECOND CANON ; OK, THE FIVE ANTILEG OMEN A. 



CHAPTER I. 

GENEKAL FACTS. 

321. If the twenty scriptures of the first canon, as soon as they 
appeared, were received as divine by all the churches of Christen- 
dom, and if the two books which compose the second-first were, 
at first, universally admitted, it was not so with the five small 
late epistles of James, Peter, John, and Jude. Accepted by " a 
great number," says Eusebius, they were not universally accepted, 
because sent to Christian people just at the moment when their 
authors were about to disappear by death, and, moreover, ad- 
dressed to the whole body of believers, they had not the same 
advantages as the greater part of the other apostolic writings for 
being at once universally received. For this purpose there was 
wanting either the personal influence and presence of the sacred 
writers, or the immediate testimony of the men, or of the churches, 
to whom all the non-catholic epistles were at first addressed. 
Consequently, we can understand how they were admitted more 
slowly in certain more distant parts of the Christian world. 
While a majority of the churches received these five epistles from 
the first, as making a part of the Sacred Scriptures, there were 
always many, during two centuries and a half, who remained in 



336 



THE SECOND CANON. 



suspense as to the Divine authority of one or other among them ; 
and it was only at the beginning of the fourth century, about the 
year 325, that these hesitations ceased in all parts of the East and 
West. It was thus that their universal and absolute adoption 
into the sacred canon came to be deferred. But this very delay, 
by attesting at once the liberty and the sacred jealousy of the 
primitive churches on the subject of the canon, should serve, as 
we shall soon see, only to render our confidence more entire in 
the peaceable and final result of this sacred investigation. 

322. Origen, at least according to a report of Eusebius, (Hist. 
Eccl., vi., 25,) said of the two last epistles of John, " that not all 
Christians received them as authentic, (ov iravTes <f>acri yvrjalovs 
elvac Tavras;)" and of the Second Epistle of Peter, that "it was 
called in question, (afj,<f)(,/3dXk€TaL.)" In like manner, Eusebius, 
(Hist. Eccl., iii., 25,) at the beginning of the fourth century, said 
that the epistles of James and Jude, and the second of Peter, and 
the two last of J ohn, were controverted, (avriXeyo/jbivai,) though, at 
the same time, acknowledged by a great number, (ryvtopl/iw & 
o/jLcos rot? 7roWo2s.) He says again, " Though controverted, they 
are yet acknowledged by the greater part of ecclesiastical persons." 
And as to the two epistles of James and Jude, he has said, " It 
is well known that these also are publicly read with the rest of 
the scriptures, (o/zo>? Se tafxev kcli ravraq jjuera tcov \0c7rc0v iv 
7r\e£(TTCu<; heh^fjioaievfJieva^ e'/c/eA^cr/at?.)" 

We have already shewn in our Eirst Book, that all the eleven 
catalogues of the fourth century which remain to us contain alike 
the seven catholic epistles, that of Athanasius, and of the anony- 
mous author inserted in his works, (Prop. 67,) of Epiphanius, of 
Jerome, of Bufinus, of Augustin, of the Council of Laodicea, of 
the Council of Carthage, of Cyril of Jerusalem, of Gregory of 
Nazianzus, of Amphiloehius, and of Philastrius. 

323. If the seven last epistles of the New Testament have from 
ancient times been called catholic, it is because they were addressed 
to the general body of Christians, rather than to a particular 
church or person. It is also, perhaps, because this name, confined 
at first to the Eirst Epistle of Peter and the first of John, as to 
books universally received, was afterwards extended to the five 
later received epistles, when their Divine authority had been gene- 



THE SECOND CANON. 



337 



rally admitted. But whatever may have been the meaning or the 
origin of this term, its use to designate the seven epistles which 
are not Paul's is of high antiquity. Not only do we find it in 
Athanasius, Epiphanius, and Jerome, in the fourth century, but 
in Eusebius at the end of the third, or rather at the entrance of 
the fourth, in Dionysius of Alexandria before Eusebius, in the 
middle of the third, and in Origen before Dionysius. 

324-. We have already stated more than once that the order in 
which the different books of the New Testament were respectively 
placed from the most ancient times was constantly that which is 
observed in our modern Bibles, excepting that the whole of the 
seven epistles called catholic 1 preceded the collection of Paul's 
fourteen epistles. But even then, both in each category were 
respectively arranged as we see them now. As to the seven 
catholic epistles, the most ancient collections of the Greeks, as 
well as our modern Bibles, have always placed them in the follow- 
ing order — first, that of James, then the two of Peter, then the 
three of John, and, lastly, that of Jude. This order is declared to 
be the true one by Jerome, who informs us, also, that in his time 
the Latins, by an indiscreet zeal for Peter, had thought of giving 
the preference to his epistles over that of James ; " but, by the 
help of God, (Deo nos juvante,)" he says, 2 " I have re-established 
them in the order wisely followed by the Greeks/' This order is 
founded on their importance and length. Paul, in his Epistle 
to the Galatians, (ii. 9,) speaks of "James, Cephas, and John, 
who seemed to be pillars," and it is in the same order (James, 
Peter, and John,) that their epistles have been arranged. 

It will then be suitable in this review, in which we propose to 
establish their authenticity, to begin with James. 

1 Already from the times of Eusebius, Cyril, and Athanasius. Eusebius, Hist. 
Eccl., vi., 14; Athanasius, Epist. Festal; Cone. Laod., 59; Cyril, Cateeh., iv. 

2 Prol. in Epist. Canon. " Non idem ordo apud Graecos cpii integre sapiunt 
et fidem rectam sectantur. Epistolarum septem quae canonicae nuncupantur qui 
in Latinis codicibus invenitur. Quod quia Petrus primus est in numero aposto- 
lorum primae sint etiam ejus epistolae in ordine caeterarum. Sed has propria 
ordine, Deo nos juvante, reddidimus. Est enim prima earum una Jacobi, Petri 
duae, Johanuis tres, et Judie una." 



Y 



CHAPTER II. 



the epistle of james. 

Section First, 
its importance. 

325. This epistle, to judge only by its author, is the first of the 
Catholic Epistles, and James begins it with these words — "James, 
a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve 
tribes which are scattered abroad.'"' 

In the primitive churches, but especially among Christians of 
the Israelitish race, it must have acquired a particular importance 
from the eminent place which its author occupied among all the 
apostles, among all the bishops, among all the eye-witnesses of the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ, and among all the martyrs. 

We say, among all the apostles. Not only was James a brother 
of the Lord 1 according to the flesh, that is, either his half brother 
or his first cousin, being, according to some, the son of his mother 
by Alpheus, or, according to others, his first cousin, the son of 
Mary, the sister of his mother, who kept her station so faithfully 
near the cross, and again at the sepulchre, (Matt, xxvii. 6, xxviii. 
1 ;) but, further, he was held in such respect among all the 
apostles (Gal. ii. 16) that Peter, when he dissembled at Antioch, 
feared "certain that came from James," (Gal. ii. 12;) and, on 
leaving the prison at Jerusalem, he says at once, distinguishing 
him from all the rest, " Go, shew these things unto James and to 

1 Gal. i. 19. Jesus had at least four brothers — James, Joses, Jude, and Simon, 
(Mark vL 3.) 



THE EPISTLE OE JAMES. 



339 



all the brethren/' (Acts xii. 17.) Paul himself names him as the 
first of the three pillars of the primitive Church, (Gal. ii. 9.) 

Distinguished, as we have said, among all the bishops, he 
presided for twenty- seven years over that church at Jerusalem 
which was the centre and focus, the model and mother, of all the 
others ; by his superior influence he concluded the first council ; 
he was the special object of regard to Paul, Peter, and the apostles, 
who, twenty years after their Lord's ascension, still assembled 
with all the elders in his house, (Acts xv. 13, xxi. 18.) During 
more than a quarter of a century he conciliated, as we learn from 
the historian Josephus, the respect of the Jews, who surnamed 
him the Just, and who reproached themselves for his cruel death, 1 
regarding it as one of the causes of their national catastrophe. 

Eminent, again, among the eye-witnesses of the resurrection of 
Jesus, James was honoured (1 Cor. xv. 7) with a special appearance 
of the Lord, as Mary his mother had been on her way to the 
sepulchre, and Cleopas, 2 his father, on the way to Einmaus. 
Eminent, lastly, among all the martyrs, James was the first of the 
writers of the New Testament, and the second of the apostles, to 
give up his life for Jesus Christ, His colleague, James the 
Greater, the brother of John, had been beheaded by order of 
Herod Agrippa only ten years after the Saviour's ascension ; but 
our James, the brother of the Lord, was stoned by order of the 
high priest Ananias and the council of the Jews sixteen or seven- 
teen years later, while they were expecting at Jerusalem the 
arrival of Albinus, the successor of Festus. 3 

Thus Jude, at the head of his epistle, thought he could not 
better recommend himself to the respect of the churches than by 
entitling himself simply "Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ, and 
brother of James," so great among all the people of God was the 
notoriety of this holy apostle, and probably also of his epistle. 
And it is on this account, Theodoret 4 supposed that Paul himself 
alludes to James, the bishop of the Hebrews, and to his generous 

1 Antiq., xx., 8; Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., ii., 1. 

■ Yet this name is not the same as Alpheus ; and, as we have said elsewhere, it 
remains very doubtful whether James was the cousin, and not the brother, (strictly 
speaking,) of Jesus. 

1 Albinus had arrived in October 61, at the feast of tabernacles. — Toscplius, 
De Bella Jud., vi., 31. 4 Comment, on Heb. xiii. 7. 



340 



THE SECOND CANON. 



martyrdom, when lie wrote to the Hebrews, "Remember them 
which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word 
of God ; whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversa- 
tion, (xiii. 7.) 

326. The Epistle of James, having for its author a man of such 
eminence — one of the three pillars — a brother of Jude — a brother 
of Jesus Christ — a bishop advanced in life — possessed among 
Christians of immense influence, and even honoured by all the 
Jewish people — an apostle, — in fine, who was, it is said, the only 
one who had never quitted Jerusalem, and who had governed 1 
the mother-church for a quarter of a century in that city, where 
it was reckoned there were at least fifty or sixty thousand Jewish 
Christians; 2 — the Epistle of James, addressed by such a man to 
these twelve tribes of dispersed Jews who came from year to year 
to Jerusalem, — this epistle, we say, would find ready access to all 
the Hebrew Christians of Palestine and the East, and the latter in 
their turn would continue to circulate it in the most distant 
countries of their dispersion. 

Section Second. 

its immediate eeception by that poetion of the church 
to which it was fiest addeessed. 

327. We see that the Eastern Church has, from the first, re- 
ceived this scripture as authentic, and that the most ancient 
fathers made use of it. There is abundant proof that it was im- 
mediately admitted and constantly revered as a book of God 
among the churches descended from Israel. 

We find the most decisive proof of this fact in this, that the 
epistle was translated in the first century by the Syriac Chris- 
tians into their famous Peshito version, which belongs, as we have 
said, to the apostolic age, (Prop. 32,) and was even made so early 
that the two last epistles of John, the second of Peter, and that of 

1 We say governed, without presuming to decide on the form of the ad- 
ministration which the churches of God practised in a great city such as J eru- 
salem. 

2 Acts xxi. 20, (woaai fLvgiabzs.} 



THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 



341 



J ude, could not be inserted, any more than the Apocalypse, 1 be- 
cause they appeared at a later period. 

But this immediate admission of the Epistle of James by such 
churches, presents us in its favour an argument of the greatest 
force; since better judges of its Divine authority cannot be ima- 
gined than those Christians among whom James had laboured 
twenty-seven years, and to whom he had directly addressed it. 

This scripture was, then, received as inspired in the age of its 
author, in the very places where he had so long preached, and by 
the persons who were best qualified to appreciate his character, 
his divine mission, and the authenticity of his epistle. 

328. Yet Eusebius places it among the books tvhich some con- 
trovert " The doubt/' Kirchhofer remarks, 2 " probably proceeded 
from the uncertainty to which James it was to be ascribed ; for 
no other historical testimony can be brought against it." 

Section Thikd. 
its date. 

329. We cannot doubt that the epistle was written towards the 
end of James's career ; for as soon as we examine it with a view 
to its date, we recognise in it numerous signs of an epoch com- 
paratively late. The extensive dispersion of the Jewish churches, 
their organisation already completed, and their degeneracy far ad- 
vanced, their forgetfulness of the marks of justifying faith, the 
influence of their wealth, the care required on the part of the 
apostle to remind them of the place of works in the evangelical 
economy, the high authority he had then acquired in the Jewish 
churches, the long experience indicated by his language — all these 
traits combined lead us to fix a date for this scripture much later 
than the first formation of Christian churches. 

1 Hug, we have already said, (Prop. 35,) thinks that the Apocalypse was later, 
and for a time inserted in the Peshito. 

s Geschiehte dea N. T. Canons, &c., p. 258. Zurich, 1842. 



342 



THE SECOND CANON. 



Section Fourth, 
causes of. the hesitation of some churches. 

330. If, on the one hand, the epistle was immediately and uni- 
versally received by " these twelve tribes of the dispersion," 
(James i. 1,) — that is to say, by all the Jewish Christians of Pales- 
tine, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Asia Minor, to whom James had 
addressed it, as, also, by the churches of the Gentiles in more 
direct connexion with these Christian synagogues, and by the 
most ancient fathers ; we may easily understand, on the other 
hand, why a small number of persons were slow to receive it, and 
why the testimonies in its favour, during the two first centuries, 
were comparatively few. 

In fact, not only were they at a greater distance from this man 
of God, who never quitted, even to the day of his martyrdom, his 
important residence at Jerusalem, and who seems to have received 
for his special mission the constant government, for five-and- 
twenty years, of this mother-church ; but, above all, many of 
them lost, by the misfortunes of the Jews, the facilities they 
would otherwise have had of acquiring an immediate and sufficient 
knowledge of the claims of this book to their acceptance. James 
had scarcely written it, when the J ewish churches were involved in 
the troubles of war, of flight, and of persecution. Very soon all 
the Judaising churches were broken up ; and we know the strong 
dislike everywhere felt towards them, and the increasing prejudices 
entertained by the Gentile Christians against the Jewish converts. 

According to all appearance, this epistle was written about the 
year 61, the epoch of the martyrdom of James, and the arrival of 
Albinus in Judea. 1 The oppression of the Jews under this bad 
man, and, soon after, under his successor, Floras, began almost 
immediately ; for Josephus dates the ruin of the Jewish nation 
from the year 6 2. 2 Albinus, having learned, he tells us, that 
Floras was appointed to take his place, emptied the prisons of 

1 Others place it in 64, but, according to Josephus, it was in 62 that this governor 
scourged the famous Jesus, the son of Ananus. — Be Bell. Jud., vi., 5, § 3. 

2 'E^ sxs/vov fidXiffra, rov xaigov .... ngoaxonTO^TUV Iri rb %^ov.— 
Antiq. Jud., xx., 8. 



THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 



343 



Jerusalem, and filled the whole country with disturbance. Floras, 
in the spring of 64, came like an executioner, rather than a go- 
vernor ; and his acts of injustice soon surpassed all belief. The 
year which followed was that of all those threatening prodigies 
which Tacitus and Josephus have reported as the precursors of 
frightful disasters. On the loth of the following May, Florus, 
seated on his tribunal at Jerusalem, sent his soldiers to massacre 
three thousand six hundred and thirteen persons in the market- 
place ; and, on the 4th of October, Cestius Gallus encamped with 
a Roman army before this guilty city, and planted " the abomina- 
tion of desolation in the holy place, where it ought not to be." 
And it was at this sign, foretold by Jesus Christ, and by Daniel, 
that all the Christians, amounting to many myriads, "fled to the 
mountains/' 1 

We can understand that, in consequence of these extraordinary 
commotions, which followed so closely the appearance of this 
epistle, and put an end to the existence of the Jewish churches, 
that the Gentiles, among whom those churches were soon held in 
very great disrepute, were more slow to receive it, notwithstand- 
ing it had so many claims to their respect. And we may also 
understand that the direct testimonies of authors of this period 
among the Latins, and even among the Greeks, would be com- 
paratively few. 

Section Fifth, 
witnesses. 

331. Yet we must guard against believing that the testimonies 
of Gentile Christians are wanting. We can cite some of great 
value. 

And, first of all, we find at Rome, in the first century, this 
epistle cited by frequent allusions in Clement's epistle, especially 
in chapters ii., x., xvii., xxiii., xxx., xxxi., xxxiii., xxxviii., xlvi., 
xlix. 2 We find it also cited in The Shepherd of Hennas, by 
seven allusions, which Lardner regards as a sufficient proof of 

1 Josephus, De Bello Jud., ii., 19, §§ 4-9; Matt. xxiv. 16; Mark xiii. 4; Luke 
xxi. 21; Dan. ix. 21, xi. 31. 

3 Read again our extract from this epistle, Propp. 254-260. 



THE SECOND CANON. 



the knowledge the author had of it, whoever he might be. 1 In the 
same manner, four times in Irenseus, 2 and likewise in Tertullian. 3 
The citations adduced from Clement of Alexandria are less cer- 
tain ; but those of Athanasius 4 frequently name the apostle James 
in full, and quote his very words. 

332. The epistle was held to be authentic and Divine by all 
those who attributed it to the apostle James, the son of Alpheus. 
But as to those of the ancients who believed it to be not by the 
apostle James, but by James the Just, the brother of J esus Christ 
■ — and would make two different persons of these two Jameses — it 
left them in some doubt, not of its authenticity, but its canonicity; 
because they supposed that the author, notwithstanding his emi- 
nence, was not an apostle. 

Yet, at the beginning of the fourth century, these doubts came 
to an end ; and the majority of the churches were unanimous in 
favour of inserting it in the canon. We have seen that all the 
eleven catalogues of the same century equally admit it, (Prop. 56.) 

333. Origen held it to be Divine, as we learn directly from 
many of his quotations. Tor example, in his commentary on 
John,5 on the Epistle to the Romans, and on the 30th Psalm ; and 
in his eighth homily on Joshua, (which has come down to us only 
in a Latin translation.) 6 And if Eusebius, in the citations he has 
made of the opinions of Origen respecting the Scriptures, appears 
to us as representing him to be silent on the Epistle of James, 
we must not draw any unfavourable conclusion from this circum- 
stance ; for the same author, (Hist. Feel, vi., 25,) speaking of the 
opinions of Origen on the canon, has abstained from saying any- 
thing on the Epistle of Jude, though Origen has quoted it more 
than fifteen times, and with eulogy. 

Eusebius, as we have seen, puts the Epistle of James in the 

1 Particularly Mandat., ii., ix., xi., xii., 5, 6, where the author cites James iv. 
7, 12; Simil., v., 4, viii., 6. 2 Especially Haeres., iv., 16, § 2. 

3 De Orat., viii. ; Adv. Jud., % 4 Ad Serap., Ep. i. ; Contra Arian, ov. 3. 

5 Tom. xix. Opp., torn, iv., p. 306. 'fig iv rfj <psgofj/sv/} 'laxui(3ov eirisroXj) 
avsyvu)fj,iv. Neudeoker translates <pe*6{ihp, in this passage, " universally acknow- 
ledged." Others translate it, " which is put in circulation." See likewise in Ep. 
ad Rom., lib. iv. Opp., torn, iv., pp. 535, 536. 

6 Opp., xii., p. 412. " Petrus," he says, " duabus epistolarum personat tubis, 
Jacobus quoque et Judas." 



THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 



rank of writings that are still controverted, though acknowledged, 
he says, by a great number, (Hist Eccl.., iii., 25.) 

Even Amphilochius, in speaking of the doubts which some have 
had in reference to the five small later epistles, excepts the Epistle 
of James, which, he says, is "received by those who doubt the 
four others." It is useless to point out the testimonies of the 
following centuries, for the canon was henceforward definitively 
fixed. 

334. Many authors have noticed that the First Epistle of Peter, 
which was written later than that of James, contains more than 
ten sentences 1 relating to morals or doctrine, which, by their 
striking resemblance to passages in the latter, bear a silent testi- 
mony to it ; the Holy Spirit not being able better to attest its 
divinity than by adopting and incorporating these sentences in an 
epistle so readily and constantly received by the whole Christian 
world. 

335. Some persons have too often taken pleasure in recalling 
a most painful expression of Martin Luther in 1522, respecting 
the Epistle of James, which, without sufficient reasons, at first 
appeared to contradict the doctrine of the Scriptures on the justi- 
fication of the sinner by faith. But, besides that this great 
servant of God afterwards retracted that imprudent saying, 2 it 
must not be forgotten that at the time when he uttered it, in- 
numerable frauds had been practised everywhere in almost all the 
monuments of Christian antiquity — false titles, false scriptures, 
false books of the fathers, false legends of the Breviary, false 
decretals of the popes. In his time men's minds were beginning 
to emerge from this chaos ; and even in the Roman Church the 
eyes of some were opened at last to many of these falsehoods. 
Still it was not yet easy to distinguish in every instance the real 
from the supposed monuments, to recognise the true principles of 
sacred criticism, nor to consult the materials for it, many of which 

1 For example, James iv. 2, and 1 Fet. v. 5, quoted by Clement of Rome, (cbu 
xx.) So James i. 5, and 2 Pet. iii. 3, 4, quoted by the same father, (ch. xxxiii.) 

1 In all the editions of his Bible posterior to 1526. See Gerhard, Theologia 
Locus de Script. Sacra, § 279, (Frankfort, 1657;) Seckendorf, Commentar. de 
Lutheranismo, (Frankfort, 1692;) Calovius, Biblia Illustrata, (Frankfort, 1676, 
fol.,) torn, xi., p. 1393. 



346 



THE SECOND CANON. 



were yet to be discovered. 1 Critical learning was confined to the 
assertions of Eusebius, and it was not yet known how to sift 
them. It was not yet certain that the Roman Church, already so 
strongly impelled to throw apocryphal books into the depository 
of the Old Testament, (which had been intrusted only to the 
Jews,) would not in the same way make free with the New, to 
foist also into it uninspired books; for it was not sufficiently 
understood that the providence of God is pledged, as we shall 
presently shew, never to allow this unfaithfulness to any church, 
good or bad. 

Section Sixth, 
its excellence. 

386. If it entered into our plan to take account of the 
spiritual beauty and sublimity of the books of which we here 
establish the canonicity by historic proofs, we should be led to 
remark the original, profound, and pathetic character of this 
sacred epistle, its perfect adaptation to the wants of the primitive 
Church as it existed among the converts of the Israelitish popula- 
tion, the elevation of thought, the majesty of its style, and its 
noble simplicity. Above all, we should display its incomparable 
superiority, when compared with the uninspired writings of those 
first ages. While the latter present so many trivialities, oddities, 
and extravagances, here there is nothing of the sort ; all is sober, 
wise, grave, and elevated. And there is great force in this nega- 
tive proof. It manifests the operation of the Holy Spirit with the 
same clearness with which we have been struck on attempting to 
compare the apocryphal Gospels with the canonical 

Section Seventh. 

which james is its author ? 

337. If many writers among the ancients, and many especially 
among the moderns, have appeared to attach great importance to 
the resolution of this question, "Was this James an apostle, or 

1 For example, the Epistle of Clement of Rome, which renders an important 
testimony to the Epistle to the Hebrews, and to the Epistle of James, was not 
discovered till 1628. 



THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 



347 



was he not?" yet all acknowledge that he was a brother of 
Jesus Christ; that he governed the church at Jerusalem for 
seven-and-twenty years ; that he held the highest place among 
the apostles, of whom he was one of the three pillars, and the 
first of the three ; that, in one word, he was that James so often 
mentioned by Luke in the Acts, 1 and by Paul in his epistles. 2 
But this is not the question. The author of this epistle, was he, 
or was he not, one of the twelve ? This is the point that has 
been so violently disputed. Was he the same as the apostle 
James the Less, the son, according to some, of Alpheus and Mary, 
the wife of Cleopas, the aunt of Jesus Christ ; or, according to 
others, of Alpheus and of that Mary, the mother of James and 
Joses, who stood beside the cross ? 3 Or rather, was he a third 
James, not known to the readers of the New Testament before the 
12th chapter of Acts? In other words, was he styled brother 
of the Lord in virtue of being only a first cousin, or as a half- 
brother ? Was he really one of the twelve ? 

338. If many persons, whether in impugning or defending the 
canonicity of this epistle, have attached so much importance to 
this question of the apostolicity of its author, we believe this view 
to be erroneous. And when, in the present day, the rationalists, 
to weaken the inspiration of the Scriptures, have done their utmost 

1 See Acta ix. 20-30, xii. 17, xv. 13-20, xxi. 18-25. 
8 See Gal. i. 17-19, ii. 2, 6, 9, 12; 1 Cor. ix. 5, xv. 7. 

3 For example, according to Kirchhofer, (p. 258,) who appears to believe that 
he was the son of Alpheus and of Mary, the mother of Jesus, by a second mar- 
riage, and identifies the latter with the Mary of whom we speak, (the mother of 
James and of Joses.) 

We read in the Gospel of John, (xix. 25,) that the blessed mother of Jesus had 
a sister, named Mary (the wife) of Cleopas ; and we learn that these two Maries, 
on the awful day of the crucifixion, met together at the cross with a third Mary, 
called of Maydala, (or Mary Magdalene.) Here is the question: — Where are these 
three Maries in the parallel accounts of the crucifixion in the evangelists ? Where 
is the blessed mother of the Saviour ? Have the three other evangelists forgotten 
her? This does not seem admissible. " Many women were there," they tell us, 
(Matt, xxvii. 55,) " beholding afar off, . . . among which was Mary Magdalene, 
and Mary the mother of James the Less, (son of Alpheus, Matt. x. 3,) and of Joses, 
and the mother of Zebedee's children, and Salome," (Mark xv. 40.) Can we be- 
lieve that the three first evangelists neglected to name in this scene of Calvary 
the mother of the Saviour ? and must we not rather think that this Mary, the 
mother of James the Less, of Joses, and of Jude, (brother of James, Acts i. 13, 
Jude, 1,) was this same mother of Jesus whom we find so often in the Gospeks 



348 



THE SECOND CANON. 



to prove that neither James, now under our consideration, nor 
Jude his brother, author of the epistle which bears his name, nor 
the John of the short epistles, nor the John of the Apocalypse, 
nor the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, nor even the Mat- 
thew of the first Gospel, were in the number of the twelve apostles, 
we think that their assertions, otherwise ill-founded as to the 
matter of fact, have very slight bearing on the argument. 

In fact, inspiration was by no means confined to the apostolate. 
Many others besides the twelve received miraculous gifts, and 
among those gifts, that of inspiration. A writing was canonical, 
not because it was apostolic, but because it was inspired. The 
Gospel of Luke, that of Mark, and the Book of Acts, had, in virtue 
of being inspired scriptures, the same authority as the Gospels of 
Matthew or John, — God having chosen, according to His good 
pleasure, among the twelve and out of their circle, men whom He 
made the prophets of His New Testament, just as He selected 
from different stations in life a Solomon, an Amos, a Joel, or a 
Nehemiah, to make them the writers of His earlier oracles. Tor 
a book to have Divine authority, it was sufficient that it was 
inspired ; and it was sufficient to prove a book to be inspired, that 
it was recognised as canonical, that it was recommended as such 
to the primitive churches by the apostles of the Lord, and that it 

accompanied by the brethren of Jesus, (James and Joses, J ude and Simon, Mark 
vii. 3 ; Matt. xii. 46, xxvii. 55 ; Luke viii. 19 ;) and whom we see again on the day 
of the ascension, (when she was at least sixty years old,) accompanied still by the 
brethren of Jesus, in the upper chamber at Jerusalem? (Acts i. 13.) 

We believe that the Bible has always honoured the condition of a mother in 
Israel, quite as much, at least, as that of a virgin. " Mary," it is written, (Matt, 
i. 18,) "was espoused to Joseph; before they came together, (irglv }j SvvsXdsTv 
avrov$,) she was found with child of the Holy Ghost, . . and Joseph knew her not 
till (sCfjg ov) she had brought forth her first-born son," (ver. 25.) 

All ages will call her "blessed ;" but it must also be remarked, that the Holy 
Spirit has been so far from wishing to exalt the Son of man by the exaltation of 
His mother, that, on the contrary, He has been pleased to reveal to us all the 
humiliation of His birth, and that, in giving us His genealogy, He has taken care 
to name but four of His female ancestors in His whole parentage for forty-two 
generations. And these four females, who are they? First, the incestuous 
Tamar; then the unchaste Rahab ; then Ruth the Moabitess; and, lastly, the 
unfortunate Bathsheba, who had been the wife of Uriah. The Holy Spirit does 
not teach us to speak of Mary but with honour ; but, from the birth of her first-born, 
and through the whole course of the New Testament, He has never styled her the 
Virgin, as human traditions have done with so much zeal. 



THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 



349 



was received by them. This was accomplished under the direc- 
tion of that providence of the Lord which has caused all our sacred 
books to be inserted in succession in the collection of His New 
Testament, as it has done for the Old, and which has made the 
whole of Christendom, both in the East and West, unanimous on 
this one point for fifteen centuries. This is the fact established 
by the history of the canon, and which we shall examine in the 
sequel. 

339. Yet, without wishing to enter too far into this question 
of the apostolic character of James, to which we attach only a 
secondary importance, we believe that we can render it probable 
and almost certain, that the author of our epistle was no other 
than James the son of Alpheus, as he has been thought to be 
among the fathers, by Chrysostom, Athanasius, Jerome, Amphi- 
lochius, Augustin, Theodoret, Theophylact, and the Chronicle of 
Alexandria. 1 For — 

(1.) It is without sufficient reason that, in order to deny the 
apostleship of James, it is alleged that the title of apostle is not 
placed at the head of his epistle ; for neither has John put it at 
the head of his, nor Jude, nor even Paul in a third of his, 2 and 
yet all three were apostles. 

(2.) After the death of James the Greater, (whom Herod killed 
in the year 44,) the Scriptures have always expressed themselves 
as knowing only one other James, the brother of the Lord, a 
man eminent in the Church of God. It follows that there 
could be no other person in the least distinguished of this name. 
What becomes of James the Less, if this eminent James was 
not he ? 

(3.) The Lord had four brothers, among whom are reckoned a 
Jude and a James, besides Joses and Simon, (Matt. xiii. 55; 
Mark vi. 3.) But Jude calls himself the brother of James, 
(Jude 1,) and James is called, the brother of the Lord, (Gal. 

1 Thus have thought, in our day, Hug, De Wette, Gnericke, and Reuss. Winer 
and Neander are not decided. On the other side, we find Origen, Eusebiua, 
Hilary, Ambrose, Epiphanius, and Gregory of Nyssa. On such a question of 
criticism, the fathers are doctors, and not witnesses or judges; their authority is 
only that of the moderns. 

2 The first and second to the Thessalonians, that to the Philippians, to Phile- 
mon, and to the Hebrews. 



350 



THE SECOND CANON. 



i. 19.) It will be very naturally asked whether these are not the 
same persons. 

(4.) But, further, among the twelve we may reckon several of 
the brethren of the Lord, (1 Cor. ix. 5,)— among His brethren, a 
James, a J oses, and a Jude ; among the twelve, a James, the son 
of Alpheus, and a Jude, brother of James, 1 who both were either 
His brothers properly so called, or His first cousins, 2 or His half- 
brothers. Must we not conclude that James, author of the epistle 
and brother of the Lord, (Gal. i. 19,) as well as Jude his brother, 
author of another epistle, have both been named, on the same 
grounds, brethren of the Lord, and both reckoned in the number 
of the apostles ? 

(5.) It would be very difficult to believe that the James of the 
Acts, of the Epistle to the Corinthians, and of the Epistle to the 
Galatians, if he had not been himself an apostle, would have 
enjoyed so high an authority in the presence of the apostles, either 
in the Council of Jerusalem 3 or in his own house, where the elders 
and apostles were convened, (Acts xx. 1 8,) or in Peter's estimation, 
(Acts xii. 17, Gal ii. 12,) or in that of Paul, (1 Cor. ix. 5, Gal. 
1 19, ii. 9, 12,) — "James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be 
pillars," said Paul; "other of the apostles saw I none, save James 
the Lord's brother." 

(6.) It would be also very difficult, if he was not the apostle 
the son of Alpheus, to believe that the Book of Acts, in the 12th 
chapter, would abruptly introduce him on the apostolic scene as 
henceforward the most notable and influential personage of the 
Church, without having said anything of his person or of his 
conversion, and without having made any mention of him else- 
where in the New Testament. 

(7.) Above all, it will be very difficult to believe that Luke, at 
the moment just after he had been narrating the death of James 

1 Otherwise called Lebbeus or Thaddeus, (Acts i. 13; John xiv. 22; Luke 
vi. 16.) 

2 Many object, not without reason, that it would be contrary to the usage of 
the Greeks to apply the term brother (ddsX<p6g) to cousins. They add, that Paul, 
and Luke himself, when they wish to speak of cousins, make use of the terms 
an-^ihg or awyyivyjc, (Luke i. 36, 58; Col. iv. 10; Rom. ix. 5, xvi. 7, 11, 21.) 

3 Acts xv. 19 — A/o lych xg/W What would the doctors of the Church of 
Rome say, if Peter had used such language ? 



THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 



351 



the Great, when his readers would be supposed to know no other 
James besides him, excepting James the Less, would immediately 
proceed to speak in the same chapter of a third James, of whom 
Scripture had hitherto said nothing, without giving notice that he 
was not referring to the only James whom his readers would be 
supposed to know. 

(8.) But it would, again, be very difficult to believe that Paul 
would clearly and positively call him an apostle, (Gal. i. 19,) if he 
had not been one, — " I went up to see Peter, . . . but other of 
the apostles saw I none, save (or unless) James the Lord's 
brother." 

In vain would any one attempt to do violence to this verse by 
translating it, " I saw none other of the apostles, but I saw 
James;" for not an example can be found of erepov ovk being- 
followed by el firj in the restricted sense of but. And, besides, 
in this passage, was it not Paul's aim to establish that he had 
remained a long time after his conversion without having seen an 
apostle ? — then James the brother of the Lord was an apostle. 

(9.) When Paul says to the Corinthians, (ix. 5,) " Have we not 
power ... as well as other apostles, and the brethren of the 
Lord, and Cephas ? " it is sufficiently clear that he was far from 
meaning to except the brethren of the Lord from the number of 
the apostles. It puts them, on the contrary, in their rank with 
Cephas, as if he had said, " as the other apostles, even the brethren 
of the Lord, and even Cephas." 

(10.) On the contrary hypothesis, there would be in the gospel 
history two persons named Joses, three named Jude, and four 
named James, which it is difficult to admit. Two called Joses, 
one the brother of Jesus, (Matt. xiii. 35,) the other His cousin or 
half-brother. Three called Jude — one Iscariot, the other a brother 
of Jesus Christ, (Matt. xiii. 55,) and another an apostle and son 
of an unknown James, — for we must then necessarily understand 
the expressions, 'louSa? J IaKCD/3ov, (Luke xvi. 1G, Acts i. 13, 
John xiv. 22,) in the sense of Jude son of James. And, lastly, 
four persons called James — first, the son of Zebedee ; secondly, 
the son of Alpheus, and cousin or half-brother of the Lord; 
thirdly, His own brother ; and, lastly, an unknown James, father 
of the apostle Jude. 



352 



THE SECOND CANON. 



340. We must come to the conclusion, that if it is "by no means 
necessary to establish the apostolicity of this epistle in order to 
prove its canonicity, yet we have the strongest reasons for ad- 
mitting that the author was an apostle ; while persons of a contrary 
opinion are at least unable to prove that he was not. 



CHAPTER III. 



the second epistle of petek. 

Section First. 

the study "which it claims. 

341. This scripture claims more than any other an attentive study 
of its characteristics and its history ; for, notwithstanding the 
beauty of doctrine and the apostolic majesty which distinguish it, 
it is, of the five controverted epistles, that which modern adver* 
saries have most vigorously attacked, not only on account of 
what is deficient in its historic proofs, but especially on account 
of the homage that it pays so decidedly to the epistles of Paul, 
under the double relation of their authenticity and their inspira- 
tion. 

Moreover, it must be granted that in all times men of learning 
have given their verdict in favour of it and against it. Against 
it, because, of the five antilegomena, it is that which presents in 
its favour the fewest testimonies of the fathers during the two 
first centuries of the Church ; and for it, because, at the same 
time, of the five antilegomena, it is that of which the internal 
characteristics attest most undeniably its apostolic authenticity, so 
that, when persons are disposed to reject it, they are obliged to 
do it on suppositions so strange that they amount to a "moral 
impossibility," (as Louis Bonnet lias so well said, in his Com- 
mentary on the New Testament,) 1 — "an impossibility (he adds) 
which, in every unprejudiced judge, produces a conviction so vivid 
and so firm, that we do not hesitate to assert that, among all the 

1 Nouveau Testament, clans son Introduction, torn, ii., Geneve, 1S52, p. 701. 

Z 



354 



THE SECOND CANON. 



books of the New Testament which have been controverted at 
certain times, there is not one whose authenticity is so certain 
as the Second Epistle of Peter." 

This has latterly been the opinion of many of the most distin- 
guished critics of Germany ;! and we have very recently seen the 
learned Guericke, who, in his Beitrage, (p. 175,) had formerly 
expressed his doubts of its authenticity, nobly and repeatedly 
retract those doubts in his "Introduction" of 1854. 2 

Section Second. 

the epistle affirms that it was written by peter. 

342. It must first of all be well observed that the author de- 
clares himself to be " a servant and an a,postle of J esus Christ" 
just as the author of the preceding epistle calls himself "Peter, 
an apostle of Jesus Christ/' He repeats this assertion from one 
end to the other, directly and indirectly, and under all forms. He 
attests also that it is written to the same class of persons to whom 
the first had been addressed, that is to say, " to the elect among 
the Israelites of the dispersion, (e'/cXe/crot? irapeiruhrifioL^ Siacr- 
7ropas,y' scattered as strangers through the different provinces of 
Asia Minor. "This second epistle, beloved," he says, "I now 
write unto you," (iii. 1 ;) and he avers that he was one of the eye- 
witnesses of the Lord's transfiguration on the holy mountain, when 
" there came such a voice to him. from the excellent glory, This is 
my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased/' He says, more- 
over, that " the time of his departure is at hand/' the moment had 
arrived for "putting off his tabernacle," (i. 13,) as the Lord Jesus 
Christ himself "had shewn him," — (14) — that same Jesus who, a 
little after He had risen from the dead, had pointed out by what 
death he should glorify God, (John xxi. 14, 19.) He thought it 
" meet in both epistles," he adds, " to stir up the pure minds " of 
his brethren of the dispersion, by way of remembrance. He fore- 
sees that his letter will be universally read, and, in the expectation 

1 Besides Guericke, Isagogik, 1854; Dietlein, Der 2 Brief Petri, 3 851 , pp. 
1-74; Thiersch, (1852,) Versaminlung, &c. 

2 Page 483 — "Der ich hiemit wiederholt retractire." See his Gesammtges- 
ohichte des N T. ; oder, Neutestamentliche Isagogik, p. 472. 



* 



THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PETEE. 355 

of his approaching end, he will " endeavour that, after his decease, 
they might have these things continually in their remembrance, 
and be established in the present truth," (i. 15, 12.) At the same 
time he pronounces a eulogium on " all the epistles of his beloved 
brother Paul." They were already all written, even including the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, (Heb. iii. 15, 16,) though Paul was not 
yet departed ; for the two apostles were destined to die in the 
same year, and under the same persecution. Paul, he said, " had 
written according to the wisdom given unto him ; " woe to those 
who " wrested " his words ; it would be " to their own destruction." 
In a word, we here see the author addressing his brethren with all 
the elevation of an apostle, who knew he was on the point of 
giving up his life for his Master, and of appearing before Him. 
He exhorts them to " account that the long- suffering of our Lord 
is salvation," and to "prepare for the great day of His coming," 
" looking for " and " hasting " by their prayers " the coming of the 
day of God," when the heavens, being on fire, shall be " dissolved, 
and the elements shall melt with fervent heat ; " yet, according to 
his promise, they were to expect " a new heaven and a new earth 
in which dwelleth righteousness," (iii. 13.) 

Section Third. 

the majestic character of this epistle strongly confirms 
this testimony. 

343. That this scripture was indeed the work of an inspired 
apostle is powerfully attested by its whole character — by the 
majesty of the thoughts, by the purity of its doctrines, and by 
their profound harmony with the whole assemblage of the divine 
communications. From the beginning to the end the epistle 
reveals one of the twelve at the termination of his labours. It 
breathes throughout the apostolic spirit — an authority in the 
language — a sober grandeur in the imagery — a controlled but 
tender and solemn earnestness in its warnings — a calm elevation, 
vigorous, and sometimes sublime, in its denunciations of the 
future. The day of Christ comes on in spite of delays ; let them 
flee, then, the corruption which reigns in the world through lust ; 
let them give all diligence to holiness of life ; let the Church hold 



356 



THE SECOND CANON. 



itself ready, by a holy conversation, not to be consumed by fire with 
the world. What comprehensiveness and what awful particularity 
in his description of the last conflagration at the end of all things, 
— the earth and the heavens enveloped in flames — the elements 
melted and confounded in order that the new heavens and the new 
earth, the dwelling-place of righteousness, may emerge from this 
universal ruin ! And with what power does he conduct us to his 
solemn conclusion : — " Seeing then that all these things shall be 
dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy con- 
versation and godliness V "Ye therefore, beloved, beware lest ye 
fall from your own steadfastness ; but grow in grace and in the 
knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." " In omnibus 
epistolae partibus" Calvin has said, " spiritus Christi majestas 
se exerit." 1 

344. It must, then, be clearly understood, that to decide on 
calling into doubt the authenticity of this epistle, as many have 
done, involves not only giving the lie to all the historical tradi- 
tions which have transmitted it to us as Peter's, but forces us to 
find, either in the epistle, or in the monuments of history, reasons 
strong enough to admit such bold suppositions as the following: — 

It must, first of all, be imagined that a scripture so serious, so 
profoundly conformed to the analogy of faith, and so immensely 
superior, in all its characteristics, to all the uninspired productions 
of the same, and the following age, could be the work, we do not 
say of an ordinary, unknown man, but of a detestable forger, 
capable of heaping falsehood upon falsehood, and of carrying his 
blasphemy so far as to give himself out to be the author of the 
first epistle which the Holy Spirit had already dictated to the 
apostle St Peter, so far as to fabricate the counterfeit of a second 
epistle, and to introduce it as Divine into the churches of God. 

It must be also admitted, that the author, having composed false 
prophecies, a new Balaam, a new Ananias lying to the Holy Spirit, 
presented them as received from on high ; all the while exhorting 
men to holiness of life, and recalling, with rare pathos, the terrible 
judgments of God against the ancient false prophets, and an- 
nouncing His terrible judgments to come against false teachers ! 
(2 Pet. ii. 3.) " Their judgment lingereth not," he exclaims, 

1 Ai'guinentum Epistolae, torn, vii., p. 248. Berolim, 1834. 



THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PETER. 



357 



" and their damnation slumbereth not ! " More than this, he 
would even speak of his approaching end. He had been " shewn " 
it, he says, by Jesus Christ himself ; and this thought had not 
aroused his conscience. He had beheld with his own eyes the 
transfiguration of Christ ; he waits without fear for His speedy 
return ; and dares to pronounce those memorable words — " We 
have not followed cunningly-devised fables in making known to 
you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ ! !" 

But, still further, it must be admitted that such a man had 
been, nevertheless, so superior to all the forgers who, in succession, 
dared to give the Church supposititious writings, that, while 
these have always betrayed themselves by confusion of ideas, by 
poverty of materials, and by servilely borrowing facts from the 
inspired books, and likewise by unlucky details and manifest 
errors, nothing of the sort appears in this epistle. Everything is 
great, true, holy, serious, harmonious. And, after an examination 
that has lasted eighteen centuries, it is manifestly impossible to 
find anything in it which does not agree with facts and with 
Scripture. 

In the third chapter, you meet with sublime instructions on an 
important and quite novel subject, which, nevertheless, are entirely 
conformed to the harmony of the Christian faith. 

It must, then, be supposed that this wretched pretender, capable 
of such blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, knew how to compose 
an epistle, which, by its unity, its unction, and all its other ex- 
cellences, shews itself far superior to all other uninspired writ- 
ings of the same century, (as its opponents admit,) like the Alps 
towering above the adjacent hillocks. And when we speak 
thus, we do not compare it only with the apocryphal writings, 
or the supposititious works of Barnabas and Hennas, and the 
spurious epistles of Ignatius, but even with those of a Polycarp or 
a Clement. For we are able to detect errors of fact or of doctrine 
even in these pious productions. In the Second Epistle of Peter 
there is nothing of the kind. 

Lastly, another admission must be made. It must be acknow- 
ledged that this impostor had seized better than any of the ancient 
fathers the object and true meaning of the First Epistle of Peter. 
For, when you compare it attentively with the second, (this re- 



358 



THE SECOND CANON. 



mark is by Michaelis,) you will find their agreement such, that, if 
Peter himself was not the writer of both, you will be obliged to 
attribute to the impious forger of the second an understanding 
of the first, which the ancient fathers themselves do not appear 
to have attained. 

In a word, good sense, history, logic, and conscience, equally 
revolt against the supposition which would make the second 
epistle the work of an impostor. 

Section Fourth, 
the obstacles to its acceptance. 

345. Yet, no doubt, it will be asked, how it came to pass that 
this second epistle, so holy and so majestic, was at first received 
by only a part of the churches, and that others hesitated, a longer 
or shorter time, to introduce it into the inspired volume of the 
New Testament. This delay, we answer, may be explained by two 
reasons — the one internal, the other external. The internal, 
relating to style, is pointed out by Jerome. The external is sup- 
plied us by history. We shall speak first of the former. 

Section Fifth. 

its STYLE. 

346. Jerome, 1 though regarding the epistle as canonical himself, 
tells us that the majority of those who, in the first ages, denied 
that it was Peter's, alleged, as a reason, the dissimilarity of its 
style to that of the apostle in the first, (a plerisque ejus esse ne- 
gatur, propter styli cum priore dissonantiam) And even in the 
120th of his letters, the father, for this reason, goes so far as to 
think that Peter made use of different interpreters to translate his 
two epistles into Greek, (ex quo intelligimus, pro necessitate 
rerum, diversis eum usum interpretibus) But this objection, 
which also struck Calvin, 2 in the sixteenth century, and which 

1 Catal. Script. Eccles., cap. i. 

2 " I admire the Divine majesty of the Spirit of Christ in all parts of this 
epistle," he says; but yet, while acknowledging its apostolicity, he adopted 
Jerome's notion, that it proceeded from Peter, but that he had employed the 



THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PETEE. 



359 



Salmasius 1 reproduced in the seventeenth, as many others have 
done in our day, is not, after all, of much weight. First of all, 
because a serious examination of the two epistles destroys it, 
by shewing that it is not founded on fact, as may be seen in 
Guericke's Introduction, (1854.) The two epistles, carefully com- 
pared, reveal, in fact, more points of agreement than of difference. 
And, besides, we may remark, in general, that nothing is more 
arbitrary or uncertain than such arguments founded on style ; be- 
cause the same author, according to subjects and circumstances, 
may, in this respect, greatly differ at one time from what he shews 
himself to be at another. 

It is very true that Peter, in his second chapter, when he fore- 
tells to the churches the surreptitious intrusion of false teachers 
who denied their Redeemer, " who privily shall bring in damnable 
heresies ; .... by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil 
spoken of," (ii. 1-3,) it is very true that Peter there rises above 
his ordinary style, and gives vent to his indignation in the ener- 
getic and figurative language of the ancient prophets. But this 
cannot be a legitimate objection against the authenticity of the 
book, as will be seen immediately, because it applies, after all, 
only to the second chapter ; and we might with equal reason 
predict that the author of this portion is not the author of the 
first chapter, nor of the third ; for we can maintain that, this 
portion excepted, the style is the same in the one epistle as in 
the other. 

Section Sixth. 

its HISTORY. 

347. There is, as we have said, another reason, purely historical, 
which explains to us why this second epistle was at first received 
only by a part of the churches. It is the state in which the 
apostle and the Jewish Christians of Asia found themselves at the 
period when it was addressed to them. When Peter wrote from 
Rome to the Jewish Christians of the dispersion, he was, as he 

hand of one of his disciples. "Sic igitur constituo — a Petro fuisse profectam, 
non quod earn scripserit ipse, seel quod uuus aliquis ex discipulis, ipsiua maudato, 
complexus fuerit quae temporum neccssitas exigebat." — AT. T. Comment., torn, vii., 
p 243. BeroL, 1834. 

1 The opinion of Salmasius is reported in Wctotein, ii., 6D8. 



360 



THE SECOND CANON. 



said, at the point of " putting off his mortal tabernacle," and 
being offered up for Jesus Christ, as Jesus Christ himself had 
" shewed " him. This was in the year 65 ; so that this scripture 
reached the Israelitish Christians when Peter, already a martyr, 
was no longer among the living to give by his presence the same 
pledge for it which the first had ; and when Paul also was no 
longer on earth to support by his testimony the scripture of his 
c{ beloved brother/' (2 Pet. iii. 15.) The two apostles had just 
given up their lives for Jesus Christ, with a multitude of Chris- 
tians who were sacrificed in Eome. The conflagration of the city 
by Nero took place on the 19th of July 64 ; and very soon after 
that frightful persecution began, so vividly described by Tacitus 
in the fifth book of his Annals : " At first those were seized who 
confessed themselves Christians, and then (on their deposition) 
an immense multitude, who were convicted less of the charge of 
incendiarism than of hatred to the human race. Covered with 
the skins of wild beasts, they were devoured by dogs ; they were 
fastened to crosses, their bodies were covered with pitch, and then 
set on fire to serve as torches by night. Nero offered his own 
gardens for the spectacle," (Ann., xv.) It was during these days 
of desolation that Paul and Peter disappeared from the Church 
militant, and that the second epistle of the latter, written so short 
a time before his death, (2 Pet. i. 14,) went from Rome to the 
East, in quest of the Israelitish believers. But in what state did 
it find them ? In trouble and flight. On May 14, in the year 
66, Floris, who for two years had reduced the people to the 
depths of despair, had begun, by the massacre in the market-place, 
that terrible and final war by which Jerusalem was soon to fall. 
The Jewish believers fled to the mountains. Menaced, pursued, 
wandering, they carried with them in their flight their sacred 
Scriptures, their Peshito version, which already contained, besides 
the four Gospels and the Acts, the Epistle of James, (written 
before the year 62,) the first of John, the first of Peter, and all 
Paul's epistles, it even comprised the Epistle to the Hebrews ; 
but it could not, on account of the time, contain either the 
Apocalypse, written thirty years later, or the Epistle of Jude, or 
the two short ones of John, or even the Second Epistle of Peter. 
Scarcely had this arrived in the East from Eome when the news 



THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PETEE. 



361 



of the bloody death of the two apostles soon followed it ; and we 
can understand that, during these tempestuous days, the Chris- 
tians would have little leisure to give to their mutual communica- 
tions on this important subject sufficient time to insure unanimity. 
Hence we must expect to meet with the three following facts : — 
First, that the adoption of this second epistle would be immediate 
in some churches, especially among the Jewish Christians of the 
dispersion ; secondly, that its successive admission into the other 
churches would be slow ; and, thirdly, that its definitive accept- 
ance throughout the Christian world would be late. All this 
actually came to pass ; and this we shall proceed to demonstrate, 
beoinnino; with the third fact. 

Section Seventh, 
the definitive assent of all the christian chueche8 

WAS LATE. 

34:8. That this assent was late has been explained above in our 
5 4th proposition, where we have shewn that it dates only from 
the Council of Nice, in 325. It was from this epoch, without 
any public deliberation on the point, or any decree, (Prop. 53,) 
but by the free action of the fraternal concurrence of so many 
eminent men, that this scripture, by a tacit, by universal consent, 
entered into the canon of all the churches both in the East and 
West. All those differences in regard to the antilegomena ceased 
in the main body of the churches at the close of the council, 
(Prop. 54.) All the eleven or twelve authentic catalogues of the 
fourth century that have come down to us (Prop. 56) alike con- 
tain it ; that of Athanasius, (65 ;) that of Epiphanius, (68 ;) that 
of Jerome, (71 ;) that of Rufinus, (75 ;) that of Augustin, (77 ;) 
that of the forty-four bishops assembled at Carthage, (91 ;) that 
of Cyril, (59 ;) that of the Council of Laodicea, and of the bishops 
of all Asia Minor, (87 ;) that of Gregory of Nazianzus, (60 ;) that 
of Amphilochius, (61 ;) and that of Philastrius of Brescia, (62.) 
And we shall be able to name, in the same century, the celebrated 
Ephrem, the Syrian, who cites this Second Epistle of Peter in his 
Syriac and in his Greek writings ; * also Didymus of Alexandria, 

1 See Guericke, Ge3amnitgescb. ties N. T., p. 477. Leipsic, 1S5L 



362 



THE SECOND CANON. 



his contemporary, who, in his principal work, De Trinitate, re- 
covered in 1769, marks it as one of the Catholic Epistles, and 
attributes it expressly to Peter. 

Section Eighth, 
the successive assent has been slow. 

349. In the second place, that the successive assent has been 
slow is equally shewn by the monuments of antiquity prior to the 
Council of Nice. For example, in 324 — that is, only a year be- 
fore the council was held — we hear Eusebius, in the third book of 
his history, giving us an account of the ancient pastors of the 
Church, (tow irakai irpecrfivTepwv ;) and, according to them, 
putting this epistle in the number of the antilegomena, which, 
he says, were doubted by many, but were, at the same time, ac- 
knowledged by a great number, (ryvcopL/uLOJv 8' ovv ofAcos rot? tto\- 
Xot?;) — acknowledged, he says elsewhere, by the majority of 
ecclesiastical authors, (pfico? Se irapa ifkeiaTois rcov ifc/c\r]cnacr- 
tlkcov <yiyv(ocrfcofu,€va<;.) 

Again, in another passage in the third chapter of the same 
book, he says, " As to Peter, an epistle of his, which is called the 
first, is universally received/' (avco/ji,o\oyr)Tcu.) Also, the ancient 
teachers, or pastors, (pi irakai irpeapvrepoL^ have made frequent 
use of it in their writings, as an uncontroverted scripture, (&>? 
ava/jL(j)i\€/cT(p .... KaraKe-^prjvraL.) But as to that of his which 
is said to be the second, on the one hand, (puev,) we have not yet 
learned (irapeCKri^apiev) whether it should be definitely inserted 
in the New Testament, (literally, intestamentised, ivSiaOrj/cov ;) 
and, on the other hand, (p/uco? 8e,) as it has appeared to a great 
number (woWols;) to be useful, it has been the object of the same 
serious regard as the other scriptures, (jjuera tojv aKkwv iairov- 
8d<r07) ypacpwv.) 

Valesius 1 (Henri de Valois) translates this passage : — ** Studiose 
lectita est ana cum reliquis Sacrae Scripturae libris" — " It has 
been carefully and habitually read with the other books of Sacred 
Scripture." 

1 In his edition of the ecclesiastical historians — Eusebius, Socrates, Sozo- 
men, &c. 



THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PETER. 



363 



And as to those doubts of some, mentioned by Eusebius, Calvin 1 
says they ought not to deter us from the use of this epistle ; for 
Eusebius does not tell us who they were who doubted. " We owe 
them, therefore," he adds, "no more deference than to unknown 
persons ; while Eusebius adds, that it was received everywhere 
without controversy." " Quandoquidem a quibus mota sit haec 
quaestio siibticet, non plus Hits deferre necesse esset quam homi- 
nibus ignotis. Et postea subjicit passim sine controversid fuisse 
receptam." 

We may clearly see, then, that, according to the opinion of 
Eusebius, the progressive assent given to this epistle, before the 
Council of Nice, had been slow, as we have said. As for himself, 
this father received it ; and a great number of the churches were 
equally anxious (icnrovSaaOv) to add it to the anagnosis with the 
other scriptures. But, from all these facts, it cannot be concluded, 
says Eusebius, that it was decidedly made a part of the sacred 
volume. But this was effected in the following year. 

350. The great Athanasius, already so celebrated at this very 
period, received it without hesitation. We find it cited many 
times in his writings ; in his first Dialogue on the Trinity ; in his 
second Discourse against the Arians ; in the thirty-ninth epistle ; 
in the Synopsis of Holy Scripture. " The Second Epistle of 
Peter" he says, " has been so named by him who wrote it ; for 
Peter, in order to instruct the Jews of the dispersion, who had 
been converted to Christianity, addressed this letter to them." 
" This," he writes again, " is what Peter said, (o eXeyev 6 2Ter/?o?,) 
— " Thus to us have been given great and precious promises, that 
by them ye might become partakers of the Divine nature!' 

351. And if we go back a hundred years before Athanasius, as 
far as the learned and pious Origen, in the first half of the third 
century, we find abundant confirmation of the same fact, and in 
the most significant manner. This eminent man, born in 185, 
and so profoundly versed in the religious literature of the two first 
centuries, received our epistle, and often took pleasure in citing it 
as a portion of our sacred Scriptures, and as a second epistle of 
the apostle. He names it without any reservation, and even quotes 
several of the most noted passages in it, either in those of his 

1 In his Argumentum Epistolae, written in 1551. 



364 



THE SECOND CANON. 



Greek works which have come down to us, or in those of which 
we have only a Latin translation, as may be seen in his Greek 
Commentary 1 on Matthew, and (on two occasions) in his Greek 
Dialogue 2 " On the True Faith;" as also in the Latin version of 
his book " On Principles" 3 (nrepl ap^wv ;) of his Commentaries 
on the Epistle to the Romans ; 4 of his eighth homily, already 
cited, (Prop. 40,) on Joshua, on Leviticus, 5 on Numbers, and on 
Exodus. 

And if we take care to distinguish here his Greek citations 
from the Latin, it is because the latter have been said to be less 
worthy of our confidence, on account of the liberties Rufinus, his 
translator, has taken with them. But Rufinus has done this only 
in certain writings, where he wished to conceal some mystical 
errors of Origen, and where there is no reference to the Second 
Epistle of Peter. Moreover, Origen, in the passages here noted, 
is not content with naming this epistle as Peter's ; he quotes im- 
portant sentences word for word, as may be seen in the notes. 
"It is written," he says, "by Peter the apostle, 'According to the 
wisdom which has been given to my brother Paul, Kara rrjv 
Gofylav, (f)7](Tiv rr)v SeBojuLevwp to) aSeXcjyS) jjlov UavXco.' It is 
written, he says again, (quoting 2 Pet. ii. 19, Homil. xii.,) 'Of 
whom a man is overcome, of the same he is brought in bondage.' 
And Peter says, in his epistle, (Et Petrus in epistold sua dicit,) 
' Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God.' 
And Peter also says, (Et item Petrus dicit) ' You are made par- 
takers of the Divine nature.' And the scripture, in one place, 

1 Opp., torn, ii., p. 55, torn, i., p. 323, torn, ii., pp. 164, 38; Kirchhofer, p. 281. 

2 He plainly indicates his knowledge of our epistle by saying, ' Ako r\ ty\; 
rrgojTrig sTriffroXTjg. 

3 Origen, Dial., Opp., tom. ii., p. 274, torn, i., p. 821, where, quoting 2 Pet. iii. 15, 
he says : — " It is written elsewhere by Peter the apostle, ' According to the wis- 
dom given,' he says, 'to our brother Paul, {irr\ ds utto Usrgov rou aTToffroXou 
ytygu^ijAvov.y And, again, citing 2 Pet. ii. 19, ' For of whom a man is overcome, 
of the same is he brought in bondage.' " 

4 Opp., tom. iv., p. 631. Edit. Bened., 1733-1759 ; De la Eue. And Peter says 
in his epistle, (2 Pet. i. 2,) " Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge 
of God." {Et Petrus in Epistold sua dicit, (2 Pet. i. 2,) " Gratia vobis et pax mul- 
tiplicetur in cognitione Dei.") 

5 Homil. iv. in Levit., (Opp., ii., p. 200,) where he cites 2 Pet. i. 4, "Being made 
partakers of the Divine nature." 



THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PETER. 



365 



says, ' The dumb beast, speaking with a mans voice, forbade the 
madness of the prophet? " (HomiL xiii.) 

It lias been unfairly objected, that, in quoting in Greek the 
First Epistle of Peter, Origen simply calls it the catholic epistle, 
(iv rfj KaOoXiKfj iirLaroXfj,) as if he only admitted one of them. 
This difficulty is reduced to nothing, when we see that elsewhere 
(in his Commentary on the Eomans, i. 8) he uses absolutely the 
same terms to designate the Second Epistle of Peter, (Et Petrus 
in epistold sua dicit,) " Gratia " . . . . &c, (2 Pet. i. 2.) 

This great teacher, then, found, in his incessant study of Chris- 
tian antiquities, satisfactory reasons for fully receiving this Second 
Epistle of Peter, though Origen says elsewhere (so at least he is 
reported to have said in Eusebius, vi. 25) that this epistle, though 
received by himself, was controverted by others. In a work now 
lost — an exposition of the Gospel of John — Origen, according to 
Eusebius, says, " Peter has left us one epistle which is universally 
acknowledged, (o/jLoXoyovfAevwv :) but let us admit a second, for 
it is controverted, {earco he koX Sevrepav, afjL^ijBdXkeraL 7^/9.) " 

Tims, then, from all the testimonies of Origen combined, in- 
cluding even the last, which yet does not seem entirely in ac- 
cordance with the nine or ten other quotations from this father,— 
from all these combined testimonies we must infer that the general 
acceptance, according to Origen, of the Second Epistle of Peter, 
was sloiv. 

Nor let any one be surprised here at the reserve of our tone of 
speaking in reference to this quotation from Eusebius ; for this 
author betrays in the same chapter a great deficiency, either of 
exactness or impartiality, on the subject of the Epistle of Jude. 
In fact, while he professes to give an account of the opinions of 
Origen on the canon, he is able, notwithstanding the very nume- 
rous and manifest testimonies which Origen bears to Jude, to give 
us the canon of this father without making any mention of the 
Epistle of Jude. 1 

352. We can give still further confirmation to these conclusions 
taken from Origen, by another testimony, equally important, of the 
same century — that of Firmilian. In fact, if we can observe that, 
in Africa, Cyprian, at least in those of his works which have come 

1 See, further on, Prop. 385. 



366 



THE SECOND CANON. 



down to us, has made no use of the Second Epistle of Peter, (no 
more than Tertullian before him ;) yet we see, by a letter to this 
holy bishop from the celebrated Firmilian, that, in the same period, 
our epistle was cited by this learned man, then bishop of Cesarea, 
in Cappadocia, and very influential in Asia. He flourished in 
231. He was a great friend of Origen, who even went to visit 
him in his distant diocese, and received in his turn a visit from 
him in Judea. He afterwards writes as follows to Cyprian : 1 — 
"The blessed apostles, Peter and Paul, have expressed, IN theie 
epistles, their horror of heretics, (in epistolis SUIS execrati sunt,) 
and have warned us to avoid them/' We cannot doubt that, in 
these expressions in reference to Peter, Firmilian had in view our 
second epistle, since the first does not say a word about heretics, 
while the other devotes a whole chapter to denouncing against 
them the terrible judgments of the Lord. The admission of the 
epistle, we repeat, was therefore slow, though real and progressive 
353. And now, if, from the third century, we pass on to the 
second, and even to the first, still we find the same fact confirmed 
in the rare monuments of that period. We cannot speak here 
of the Catalogue of Muratori either on one side or the other, be- 
cause, as we have seen, (Prop. 10,) that part of the manuscript 
which ought to mention Peter is wanting in the fragment. But, 
in the second century, we find, first of all, Irenseus, 2 who quotes 
twice the eighth verse of the third chapter. Peter, it is true, is 
not named ; but the father gives his words — " For the day of the 
Lord is as a thousand years, (H yap rj/juepa Kvplov &>? %i\ia err),) " 
— and what proves it to be a quotation on his part is that Justin 
Martyr before him, when citing the same words, gives them as taken 
from Scripture — Svvfj/ca/juev, he says, teal to eipnqfievov — we know 
also it has been said, a day of the Lord is as a thousand years? 
Further, we may see, again, in this same century, by an important 
fact, how much this Second Epistle of Peter was then spread abroad 
and respected ; for Clement of Alexandria wrote an exposition of 
it. We learn this fact from Eusebius and Photius ; from Eusebius, 

1 In the Epistles of Cyprian, the 75th. 

2 Adv. Haeres., v., 23, 28. 

3 Dial, cum Tryph., p. 308, ed. Thirlbu; London, 1722. Tom. L, pars, ii., p. 
283, ed. Otto; Jena, 1847. 



THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PETER. 



367 



who tells us that Clement, in his Hypotyposes, 1 now lost, made 
abridged expositions of all the canonical scriptures ; and also 
of Photins, 2 who mentions the commentary of Clement on the 
epistles of the divine Paul, and on the catholic epistles, (rod 
Oeiov TIavXov rcov eiriaroXwv, teal rwv /cadoXifcoov.) But it is 
well known that Eusebius and Photius both placed the Second 
Epistle of Peter among those which they called the Catholic 
Epistles. "And as to what some have asserted/' says Guericke, 3 
" that Cassiodorus represented Clement as having commented only 
on the First Epistle of Peter, it is because they have not examined 
the words of that author." 

Further, in the same second century, we can, with Lardner, 
cite Athenagoras, who, on two occasions, seems to allude to the 
words of our epistle, and Guericke, (Introd., 1854,) who quotes 
for us a father more ancient than Irenseus — Theophilus, bishop of 
Antioch — in whom we find two passages sufficiently clear, referring 
to 2 Pet. i. 10 and i. 19. Besides, in the first century, we cannot 
help observing in the apostolic fathers numerous allusions, espe- 
cially in Clement of Rome, as may be seen by referring to the long 
extract we have given in our Second Book, particularly in Chapters 
VII, IX., XI, XXIII, XXXIV. Many others might also be quoted 
from the Shepherd of Hennas and from the Epistle of Barnabas ; 
but we have abstained hitherto from appealing to these two 
books. "No doubt/' says Guericke, "persons may dispute these 
very palpable citations which we have pointed out in the apos- 
tolic fathers ; but no impartial person can fail to perceive clear 
allusions to his second epistle." 4 

Yet all must admit that these quotations will have little weight 
with decided opponents, because Peter is not expressly named, and 
because they are not disposed to acknowledge more than acci- 
dental resemblances in the thought and language. Besides, it 
must be understood that, before a book was decidedly admitted 

1 Hist. Eccl, vi, 14. T\u~r,z rrig hoiuOf.xou ysapfjc fatrtrfLq/liiag mToif^Tttt 
fiirjyr,rr:ic. Valesius translates it, compendiosam cnarratiuncm. 
a Mv*io(3i(3\ov, (Biblioth.,) cod. 109. Edit. Bekker, p. 89. 

3 In his last edition, p. 47G. Gesammtgescbichte des N. T. ; oder, Neutesta- 
inentliche Isagogik. Leipzig, 1854. 

4 Ibid, p. 472 — "Doch jedem Unbefangenen unverkennbare Anspielungen." 
See also Dietlein, Der 2 Brief Petri; Berlin, 1851, p. 1-71. 



THE SECOND CANON. 



into the canon, (entestamente, as Eusebius says,) even those who 
received it abstained from citing it to others, or cited it with 
reserve. We prefer, therefore, to appeal to a more significant 
testimony, and, while concluding once more that the progress of 
the book among the churches taken collectively was slow, though 
real, we pass on to our third point. 

Section Ninth. 

the assent on the appeaeance oe the book was immediate 
among a part of the churches. 

354. We say, then, in the third place, that it results equally 
from the monuments of the first century that the adoption of 
Peter's epistle among a great part of the primitive churches, and 
especially among the Israelitish churches of the dispersion, was 
immediate. This important fact may be inferred from the unani- 
mity which we have seen was so easily established among the 
churches of Christendom after these principal teachers, assembled 
from all parts of the ancient world, had met at Nice in their first 
general council. How could they have then decided with so 
much concord and firmness if they had not seen in the monuments 
of the primitive Church testimonies which are no longer within 
our reach? How, especially, a hundred years before, could the 
learned Origen, so jealous for the Scriptures, so versed in the 
knowledge of antiquities, and living so near the apostolic times, 
insert this letter in his canon if he had not had satisfactory proofs 
for it, and if he had not been able to trace it to the first times of 
Christianity ? 

Yet the proof, which after all is only a very powerful presump- 
tion, may appear still insufficient to the opponents of the epistle. 
We have another which seems to us unanswerable — it is the testi- 
mony of J ude. 

355. Although it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit to com- 
municate its Scriptures to the Church sufficiently late for them to 
be immediately confided to the guardianship of a Christian people 
already constituted, that is, to numerous churches already formed 
by the oral instructions of the apostles, and although the majority 
of the later received epistles were written very near the moment 



THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PETER. 



369 



when their authors disappeared by martyrdom, yet the same Spirit 
provided that the sacred writers should have time to confirm one 
another by the testimonies which they mutually bore. Thus, in 
the same way that Paul bore testimony to Luke, Luke to Paul, 
John to the three first evangelists, Paul and Peter to James, and 
Peter himself to " all Paul's epistles," (2 Pet. iii. 16,) so the apostle 
Jude, " a servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James/' in his 
Catholic Epistle, written after the two epistles of Peter, (as may 
be seen by various marks, &c, as we shall soon point out,) this 
apostle Jude evidently quotes words taken from the Second Epistle 
of Peter, while declaring, " that they had been spoken before by 
one of the apostles of Jesus Christ," (ver. 17, 18,) and that the 
Christian Church ought to " have them in remembrance." Let 
ns, then, examine attentively both this citation of a passage in 
Peter and the testimony which Jude bears to it. 

356. Eirst of all, here is the citation from Jude 1 — " But, be- 
loved, remember ye the words which were spoken before by the 
apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ." And what are these words ? 
According to Jude they are the following : — " How that they 
told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should 
ivalk after their own ungodly lusts." And where did they say 
this? Evidently in the Second Epistle of Peter, and nowhere 
else. 

For if we search for these words in the New Testament, making 
use of the Greek text, we shall find them word for word in the 
third chapter and third verse of the Second Epistle of Peter, who, 
at the beginning of his letter, styles himself, " Simon Peter, an 
apostle of Jesus Chiist;" we shall find them there, and only 
there. 

It is thus, then, that Jude quotes the Epistle of Peter as a 
scripture already known to the churches for some years, for he 
says to them, " Remember ye." 

And lie quotes it as apostolic, for he says to them, " Remember 
ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our 
Lord Jesus Christ." 

Let us examine attentively the very words which Peter wrote, 

1 We have already commented on this passage in the last chapter of our Second 
Book. 

2 A 



870 



THE SECOND CANON. 



(2 Pet. iii. 3,) " Knowing this first," he says, " that there shall 
come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts," — on 
ekevaovrai eV layaTOV to)V rj/buepcov 'EMIIAIKTAI, Kara ra? 
ihias avrwv iiriOvixia^ iropevofievoi. And let us compare, word 
for word, these words of Peter with those of Jude, " The apostles 
have told you, that in the last time (ez; ia-^aray %pov(p) — this is 
like Peter's expression, eV icr^arov tmv ^povcov — there shall be 
MOCKEES, (eaovrai e/jL7rat/cTcu,) — this is like Peter's ikevo-ovrcu 
epLiraifCTCLL — walking (Tropevo/juevoL) — the same as Peter's iropevb- 
fjbevoc — "after their own ungodly lusts, (Kara ra<? eavrcov eVt- 
Ovjjslas tcov d<J€^eiS3vy , — this is like Peter's Kara ra? ZS/as avrcov 
eiriQvpbia^. 

And it deserves notice that the most important word of Jude, 
that of i/jbiralfCTat, (mockers,) occurs only once in all the writings 
of the New Testament, namely, in this single passage of the Second 
Epistle of Peter. 

357. Let us add, that to render a still more ample homage to 
the Epistle of Peter, Jude, in his short chapter, which has only 
twenty-five verses, appears to cite Peter in ten other passages, 
(2 Pet. i. 2, ii. 1, 4, 6, 10, 11, 15, 17, 18.) And more than this, 
in his fourth verse he bears testimony to the accomplishment of 
the prophecy which Simon Peter had made in the first verses of 
his second chapter; for the one speaks of heresies, future but 
near at hand ; while the other, writing much later, speaks of them 
as being already before his eyes. 

358. This testimony of Jude in favour of Peter appears to us 
of irresistible force in establishing the high antiquity of the use 
the first Christians made of his epistle as an apostolic writing ; 
for Jude cites it as a book written aforetime, and which he 
invites them to remember. And we ought not to forget that the 
proof drawn from this remarkable testimony does not depend on 
its inspiration, since it would be sufficient for our argument if 
Jude, instead of being an apostle, had been only a simple writer 
of the same age. whose words had come down to us. It is enough 
that his epistle should be acknowledged as an authentic and con- 
temporary writing ; but that it is both the one and the other, 
even the opponents of the Second Epistle of Peter are obliged to 
admit, for we shall soon shew by the most ancient of the Latin 



THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PETEIt. 



371 



fathers, (Tertullian,) and by those of the Greek fathers who have 
most weight in these matters, (Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and 
others,) that the Epistle of Jude, which appears to have been 
written after the death of all the apostles excepting John, was 
already received in the second century by all the churches of the 
East and of the West. The Second Epistle of Peter must there- 
fore have been still more ancient, and the numerous resemblances 
which the two scriptures present cannot serve to establish a pre- 
judice against that of Peter, when once it is proved that it was 
the most ancient, and that Jude has quoted it. 

359. We must then come to this conclusion with our third 
point, that is to say, with the fact, that among a great part of 
the churches, above all, among those of the circumcision, the 
admission of the Second Epistle of Peter was immediate; slow 
afterwards, and progressive among the other churches, it became 
at last universal from the first half of the fourth century. 

This was the point to be established. We now proceed to the 
Epistles of John. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE TWO SHORTER EPISTLES OF JOHN. 

360. These two epistles contain, in all, only twenty-eight verses ; 
but, though their Divine authority is abundantly testified by the 
most respectable witnesses of Christian antiquity, they were, 
among many persons, for a time, an object of doubt. Eusebius 
{Hist Feci, iii., 25) has classed them, as we have said, among the 
controverted books, though acknowledged, at the same time, by a 
great number, (rot? 7roWoL$.) He seems even to doubt whether 
they should be attributed to John the Evangelist, or to some other 
author of the same name, (elre kcli erepov oficovvfiov.) He quotes, 
besides, (vi., 25,) a passage from Origen, in a work now lost, where 
that father, while acknowledging himself these two epistles, has 
thus spoken of them : — " John, besides his Gospel, has written the 
Apocalypse ; . . . . and he has left an epistle of a very small 
number of lines, (aTfywv.) To this a second and third epistle are 
added, though all do not say that they are genuine, (ov irdvre^ 
<p>acrl ryvrjo-lovs ehai tclvtcls) But both together have not a 
hundred very short lines, (ttX^v ovk eiai cttl^cov afi<j>6repai, 
etcaTOV.) 

361. It is easy to give a satisfactory reason for the reluctance 
which many felt to admit these two short and late epistles into 
the canon. They were addressed to individuals ; they were re- 
markably short; and the author never names himself otherwise 
than by his title of elder, (o irpeo-fivrepos, the elder, by eminence.) 
We shall return to this subject in the following chapter. 

362. On the other hand, these two epist]es, in their style and 



THE TWO SHORTER EPISTLES OF JOHN. 



373 



thoughts, are so manifestly of the same parentage as the first of 
John, that we cannot attribute them to any other author. The 
first and the two last render mutual testimony by the numerous 
resemblances which the critics have taken pains to point out, and 
which may be studied in their works ; 1 as well as other relations, 
quite worthy of notice, between these two short epistles and those 
of James and Peter. 2 

Besides, it may be asked, what end could a false St John have 
in forging them? What object could an impostor have in fabri- 
cating these two writings, so familiar, and, at the same time, so 
full of interest, as representing to us, to the very life, the intimate 
relations of the apostle and the churches ? Neither of them ad- 
vances any doctrines but those of John. They recommend no 
man, and no party in the Church ; they do not insinuate, even in 
the most distant manner, the least of the errors which the heretics 
of the time were then sowing plentifully ; they breathe only the 
holy unction and the tender love of John ; they are simple and 
modest, like himself ; in a word, they present all the most natural 
characteristics of reality and truth. 

363. Also these two epistles, notwithstanding their extreme 
brevity, have had the best testimonies of authenticity. 

First of all, in the East, from the second century, there is the 
testimony of Clement of Alexandria, to whom so much credit has 
been given in sacred criticism. He received them both as the 
divinely-inspired writings of the apostle John, 3 and even wrote 
commentaries on the in. 4 Then, in the West, in the same cen- 
tury, there is the testimony of the Canon, attributed by many to 
Cuius, a presbyter of Eome, and published, for the first time, by 
Muratori. 5 These are his words. He had before cited the First 
Epistle of John ; and adds, " Epistola sanh Judae et superscripti 
Joannis duae in catholica habentur." Our epistles have, besides, 
in their favour in the East and West, the suffrage of Ircnaeus. 
Though the first contains only thirteen verses, we find it quoted 
twice by this Father. It is well known how much weight his 

1 See, for example, Guericke, p. 497. 

2 See Wordsworth on the Canon, London, 1848, pp. 283-286. 

3 Stromata, ii., p. 389, cd. Sylburgius ; Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., vi., 14 ; Adtimbrat, 
p. 1011, edit. Venet. 4 Guericke, Gesamintgesch. des N. T., pp. 474, 495. 

5 See Propp. 31, 191-196. 



374 



THE SECOND CANON. 



education in Asia, near Polycarp, and his long sojourn in the very- 
places where John resided to his death, give to his testimony, 
when it relates to this apostle. But, in his first book, (chap. xvi. 
art. 3,) he quotes at length the 11th verse of the second epistle. 
" John/' he says, " the disciple of the Lord, pronounces con- 
demnation on such men. He forbids our saying to them, ' J oy 
he to you, (%a(peiv ;) for he that saith to them, J oy be to you, is a 
partaker of their evil deeds.' " And further on, in his third book, 
(chap, xviii.,) he says, " And His disciple, John, in the epistle of 
which I have just spoken, enjoins upon us to flee from them, 
when he says, 'for many deceivers] " &c, quoting at length the 
7th and 8th verses of the Second Epistle of John. 

Again : we can name, at the beginning of the third century, 
Origen, who acknowledged both epistles as canonical in his 
seventh Homily on Joshua, already quoted. He there enumerates 
the writings of the envoys of our heavenly Joshua, and compares 
them to the priests who bore the trumpets in the host of the son 
of Nun. " Peter," he says, " sounds the two clarions of his 
epistles ; James also, and Jude ; and John comes forth to sound 
the trumpet as loudly in his epistles and Apocalypse, (Addit 
nihilominus atque et Joannes tuba canere per epistolas suas et 
Apocalypsin.)" 

We are also able to name, in the same third century, Dionysius 
of Alexandria, who, in a passage also alledged by Eusebius, 
(vii., 25,) cites them as authentic, and attributed to John — 
" though John," he tells us, " writes anonymously, and designates 
himself in both epistles only as the elder, (aXXa avoovvpL&s 6 
TrpecrftvTepos <ye>ypaiTTai) >> 

Lastly, we are able to add to all these testimonies those of 
Alexander of Alexandria, Athanasius, Epiphanius, Gregory of 
Nazianzus, Philastrius, Jerome, Eufinus, Cyril of Jerusalem, and 
St Augustin ; the Council of Laodicea, the Council of Carthage, 
and, in a short time, of all Christendom. 



CHAPTER V. 



the epistle of jude. 
Section First. 

364. The canonicity of the Epistle of Jude is very strongly 
attested. And it may excite our wonder that a scripture so short, 
consisting only of a single chapter, of twenty-five verses, could 
furnish the ancient fathers with such frequent quotations. We 
shall point out the principal ones further on. 

Section Second, 
the author of the epistle. 

3G5. All antiquity is unanimous in recognising the author as 
the apostle Jude, (Luke vi. 1G) — Jude, the brother, or half 
brother, or cousin, of Jesus Christ, and the brother also of that 
James the Less (6 /w/e/009) who was the son of Alpheus, and whose 
relationship to the Son of man has already been discussed in a 
preceding chapter. Not one voice has been raised among the 
ancients to attribute this epistle to any other Jude than the 
apostle ; this is altogether a modern attempt. Tertullian, 1 Origen, 2 
Athanasius, (Epist. Festal,) Epiphanius, (Haeres., xxvi.,) Jerome, 3 
and others, unanimously give the title of apostle to its author. 

36G. This Jude, the brother of James, who is called Jude of 
James by St Luke, (vi. 16; Acts i. 13,) Thaddeus by St Mark, 

1 De Cultu Faeminar., lib. i., cap. iv. 

2 Comm. in Ep. ad Rom., lib. iii., torn, iv., p. 510, (ed. Paris, 1733.) 

3 Comm. in Tit., 1 ; Ep. 2 ad Paulin. 



376 



THE SECOND CANON. 



Lebbeus by St Matthew, and who is not spoken of again but once 
(John xiv. 22) in the Gospels, was married, if we may believe 
Eusebius, like the other brothers of the Lord, (1 Cor. ix. 5,) and 
his two grandsons, resident in Palestine, were, in the year 95, 
brought before the Emperor Domitian, who intended to put them 
to death on account of their relationship to the Messiah. This 
prince, however, seeing them to be nothing more than common 
men, soon dismissed them with contempt. They were after- 
wards greatly honoured in the Church, either as the relations of 
Jesus Christ, or as the nephews of James and Simeon, or as wit- 
nesses of the truth, and they lived till after the death of their 
uncle Simeon, who was made bishop of Jerusalem in the place of 
St James. " The relations and disciples of the Lord," says Euse- 
bius, (iii. 11, and iv. 22,) took part in this election, and it was done 
by common consent. 

367. Notwithstanding all the testimonies of antiquity on this 
subject, we have seen in our day the same authors who, to weaken 
the authority of the Epistle of James, have exerted themselves to 
propagate doubts of its apostolicity, have made similar efforts to 
impugn that of our epistle. This opinion, which is altogether 
modern, appears to us, as we have already said in reference to 
James, to have no argumentative force as to the canonicity of this 
book, and we refer our readers to what we have said elsewhere, 
(Propp. 338, 359.) Were it established, which it caimot be, on 
the data of modern criticism, that our Jude was not one of the 
twelve apostles, (Luke vi. 16,) the important questions which 
relate to his epistle would be in no degree affected. 

Section Third, 
its DATE. 

368. The Second Epistle of Peter, especially in the second 
chapter, presenting most striking resemblances of ideas, senti- 
ments, and even expressions, to that of Jude, it is of importance 
to ascertain which of these two authors has borrowed from the 
other. To us it appears very evident that it is Jude. " It is not 
doubtful," observes also Michaelis, 1 "that, in relation to this 

1 Tom. iv., p. 387, (French translation.) 



THE EPISTLE OF JUDE. 377 

epistle, that of Peter is the original/' We can soon satisfy our- 
selves, for the following reasons : — 

369. (1.) Peter wrote his second epistle not long before his 
death, in 64 or 65 ; while Jude survived the martyrdom of Paul 
and Peter, as well as that of the two Jameses. Luke, in fact, 
narrates that of James the Greater, (Acts xii. 2,) and Josephus the 
historian that of James the Less, (Antiq., xx, 8 ;) but neither the 
one nor the other has mentioned the death of Jude, which an- 
tiquity places much later. 

(2.) Jude employs the words of Peter with amplifications, be- 
cause a writer who quotes is naturally more prolix than his 
original, (see, for example, Jude 9 and 2 Pet. ii. 11 ; Jude 14, 15, 
and 2 Pet. ii. 9.) 

(3.) Jude, when he speaks of scoffers who "walked" in his 
time "after their own ungodly lusts," does not content himself 
with citing textually the sentence from Peter containing that re- 
markable term, iinraiKTcu, which occurs nowhere else in the New 
Testament ; but yet he takes care to say that, in quoting it, he 
adduces the tcords spoken before by the other apostles of the Lord, 
(1 8.) He, therefore, is the writer who quotes, and Peter the writer 
whom he quotes. 

(4.) "When Peter wrote this sentence, he gave it in the form of 
a prediction, making use of the future tense. "There shall be 
false teachers among you/' he said, (2 Pet. ii. 1 ;) "many shall 
follow them/' " There shall come scoffers, walking after their own 
lusts/' But, on the contrary, what does Jude do ? Speaking long 
after, and seeing with his own eyes the fatal accomplishment of 
this prophecy of Peter, he cites it as realised in his time, and, in 
speaking of it, makes use, not, like Peter, of the future tense, but 
of the present and the past. "There are certain men crept in 
unawares who were before of old ordained to this condemnation," 
(ver. 4 ;) and, (ver. 1 7,) " Beloved, remember ye the words which 
were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how 
that they told you there should be mockers in the last time ;" and 
(ver. 19,) "These be they who separate themselves, (sensual,) who 
have only the soul, not having the spirit/' The one predicted the 
evil, the other saw it with his own eyes ; the one preceded, the 
other followed. 



378 



THE SECOND CANON. 



(5.) When Jude chose, at the beginning of his epistle, to style 
himself Jade, the brother of James, we see plainly it was to intro- 
duce himself to his readers, not by reminding them of a living 
person, but of one dead — a martyr whose memory was revered in 
all the churches of Christ, and whose name was dear even to the 
other Jews who, Josephus 1 tell us, regarded his being put to death 
as one of the causes of their ruin. The churches had admired his 
faithful ministry for thirty years at Jerusalem. It is, then, suffi- 
ciently evident that Jude wrote his letter after the death of James 
his brother. 

(6.) We may observe, that in classing the epistles of the New 
Testament, the churches, from the beginning, chose to range their 
authors in the order of the dates when they were written, (though, 
at the same time, the respective books of each of these authors 
were classed according to their importance, rather than their date.) 

Thus Paul, who began so early by his epistles to the Thessa- 
lonians, is placed first. 2 After him comes James, who died in 62 ; 
then Peter and his two epistles, of which the last was not written 
till on the approach of his death, about the year 65 ; then John, 
whose epistles follow those of Peter ; then Jude, because he wrote 
last of all ; then, finally, the Apocalypse, because it was not given 
till after all the epistles, at the end of the first century, or at the 
beginning of the second. 

By this mark, then, Jude is posterior to Peter. 

(7.) Neander, also, has thought that the expressions used by 
this apostle in verses 17 and 18 indicate a very late epoch, the 
end of the apostolic age — the time when all the apostles of Jesus, 
excepting John, must have ceased to live. " Eemember ! " ex- 
claimed Jude, — " remember the words which were spoken by the 
apostles," &c. 

1 Antiq., xx., 8 ; and Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., xxiii., xxv. 

2 The three Uncial Manuscripts, A, B, C, and most of the cursive manuscripts, 
place the catholic epistles in the first rank. " Epistolae catholicae," says Tischen- 
dorf, (prolegomena to his edition of the Greek Testament, 1849,) "magno veterum 
testium consensu, eo exhibentur ordine quo Jacobus primus est, alter Petrus, 
Johannis tertius, quarto Judas." 



THE EPISTLE OF JUDE. 



370 



Section Fourth, 
objections against the epistle. 

370. It has sometimes been objected, that the ancient Peshito 
version, which contains both the Epistle of James and that to the 
Hebrews, does not contain the Epistle of Jude. But the Peshito 
version, composed, as we have said, in the last half of the first 
century, or the earliest part of the second, could not contain either 
the Epistle of Jude, written, as Neander has said, at the close of the 
apostolic age, or the Apocalypse of John, otherwise so generally 
acknowledged in the early days which followed its first appear- 
ance. It is said that the Peshito is the only Syriac version in 
which the Epistle of Jude is not found, and that it is found in 
those that have been published since, and of which there are some 
very ancient. 1 However that may be, St Ephrem, the illustrious 
father of the Syrian church in the fourth century, cites it as 
canonical, and attributes it to Jude. 

371. In the second place, it is objected that the address of the 
epistle, while naming the author, does not give him the title of 
apostle. But Jude had no more reason to give it himself at the 
head of his epistle, than Paul at the head of his epistles to the 
Philippians, to Philemon, to the Hebrews, and to the Thes- 
salonians, in which he names himself simply, 11 Paul, a servant of 
Jesus Christ." He had even less reason, since, by naming him- 
self Jude the brother of James, he would make himself recognised 
at once by all the churches as that Jude whom the Gospel of Luke 
had already designated by the same name of Jude (brother) of 
James, ('JovSa? 'Icikgo/3ov.) Would it not be abundantly evident 
that this title would suffice, especially at a time when all the 
Jewish people, as well as the Christians, were still so imbued with 
reverence for the memory of this "pillar of the Church," — for his 
long ministry, for his eminent sanctity, and for his illustrious 
martyrdom? "Jade, a servant of Jesus Clirist, and a brother of 

1 We have not examined them ourselves. See the Syriac versions edited by 
Edward Pocock, (Vers, et Notae ad 4 Epist. Syriacos, Petri 2, Johann. 2 et 3, 
Judee imam. Leiden, 1670.) Reuss (Gesch. der Heil. Schr y 42!)) thinks that the 
four catholic epistles published by Pocock belong to the Philoxenian version. 



380 



THE SECOND CANON. 



James," — what more would he want? A proclamation to the French 
people in 1820, signed Jerome Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon, — 
would it leave any doubt as to the identity of its author, because 
he had not added his title of King of Westphalia ? James, bishop 
of Jerusalem, and brother of Jude, was as well known to all 
Christians in the year 100 as Napoleon to all Europeans in the 
year 1820. 

372. In the third place, it is objected that the epistle borrows 
too largely from the Second Epistle of Peter to be inspired. But 
whether these borrowed passages are more or less numerous, we 
can shew, by examples taken from either Testament, that it was 
often allowed by the Holy Spirit for a sacred author to have 
recourse to some of the thoughts of a preceding book, in order to 
give them a new turn, and to make a new application of them. 

Still, there is a final objection taken from the use of apocryphal 
books, on which greater stress is laid. Though it has not, in our 
eyes, more weight than the foregoing, yet it will require longer 
attention. 

Section Fifth, 
alleged citations of apoceyphal books. 

373. It has been objected that on two occasions Jude has made 
mention of events not spoken of in the Bible, and of which he 
could have received information only through apocryphal books ; 
the first time, (in ver. 9,) where he speaks of the dispute of the 
archangel Michael with Satan about the body of Moses ; and the 
second time, (in ver. 14 and 15,) where he cites a prophecy of 
" Enoch, the seventh from Adam." These citations, it has been 
said, render the epistle fallible, and, consequently, interdict us 
from regarding it as canonical. 

We mention here only these two passages, and say nothing of 
verses 6 and 7, though some have been disposed to see an allusion 
to the fable of the angels defiling themselves with the daughters 
of men ; but this strange notion can only be maintained by 
applying to the angels the pronoun tovtois, in the 6th verse, 
which evidently refers to Sodom and Gomorrah, the names of 
which in the Greek (which immediately precedes) are neuter 
plurals, (Matt. x. 15.) 



THE EPISTLE OF JUDE. 



381 



But whatever may be the meaning of this last passage signifies 
little. It is said the other two are enough ; and it is sufficiently 
evident, according to Origen and Clement of Alexandria, that Jude 
made use, in the first passage, of an apocryphal Jewish work, 
known to these two fathers, and entitled The Ascension or As- 
sumption of Moses, (Ava(3a<JLs or Avakv^ns McQvaecos ;) and 
for the second passage another apocryphal work, also known to 
these fathers, and having for its title, " The Book of Enoch!' " Is 
it possible for us to admit as canonical/' says Michaelis, " a writing 
which contains apocryjmal recitals?" " Et quia cle libro Enoch, 
qui apocryphus est" Jerome had said before him, " In ed assumit 
testimonium, a plerisque rejicitur." Neither Joshua nor Moses, 
say the opponents of the epistle, have ever spoken of the facts 
stated by St Jude ; these facts, then, must be supposititious, and 
the epistle must be regarded as altogether human. 

But this objection, we reply, absolutely wants a foundation ; for 
it is made to rest on six suppositious, not less erroneous than 
arbitrary. 

374. First of all, it is assumed that an inspired man cannot 
adduce a past event without having heard of it from some tradi- 
tion, or having read it in some book. That is to say, the sacred 
historians of the New Testament are regarded simply as compilers 
or memorialists ; and we are to suppose that Jude, in order to be 
able to speak to us of the dispute of the Archangel with Satan, or 
of the prophecy of Enoch, must necessarily have copied an unin- 
spired book. As if the whole series of the scriptures of the Old and 
the New Testament did not shew us the sacred writers discoursing 
of past facts and of future events, of which they received the know- 
ledge from God alone. It is forgotten that the apostles profess to 
be men endowed with miraculous powers, guided by the Holy 
Spirit, and assisted by Jesus Christ, who " worked with them/ 1 as 
St Mark has said, " and confirmed the word with signs following," 
(Mark xvi. 20.) 

We ask, for example, in what apocryphal book did Moses read 
the creation of the heavens and the earth. In what book did lie 
read the creation of light, of the continents, of the sun and stars, 
of plants and animals, and, lastly, of man, formed of the dust of 
the earth, and made in the image of God? In what book, again, 



382 



THE SECOND CANON. 



did he read the words of God to Satan after the fall? or the 
genealogies of the elect humanity from Adam to Noah, with all 
their proper names for two thousand years ? In what book did 
he read the successive scenes of the delude during the twelve 
months when, preserved alone of all the earth, Noah floated over 
the deep, all on earth having perished, from man to the beasts ? 
In what apocryphal book did the sacred author of the Book of 
Kings learn what passed secretly in the royal chambers of the 
palace at Bethel between an unknown prince and his queen, 
when, on account of their sick child, they planned her going in 
disguise to Shiloh, (1 Kings xiv. 1-5 ;) or, again, between a queen 
and her husband, when she secretly promised him the vineyard 
of Naboth ? (xxi. 4-7.) By what book was the author of the 
Book of Job made acquainted with the transactions of that day, 
when Satan came to present himself before Jehovah in the midst 
of the sons of God, and ask permission to touch that righteous 
man in his bone and his flesh? (Job i. 6-12, ii. 1-7.) And in 
what other book did Isaiah find the name of king Cyrus, and his 
whole career, two hundred years before his birth? (Isaiah xliv. 
28, xlv. 1-7, xlvi. 8-1 1.) 

But again, to leave the Old Testament where these examples 
abound, and to come to the New ; how did Matthew, speaking of 
events that happened fifty years before, become apprised of the 
dream sent to the Magi on the night of their flight and return to 
the East ? (Matt. ii. 1 2, 1 3.) How did he learn the three tempta- 
tions of the Lord — the act of the Holy Spirit driving Him into 
the wilderness, the words of Jesus to Satan, and the coming of 
the angels who ministered to Jesus? (iv. 1-11.) How was he 
informed of the solitary prayers offered by Jesus in the night 
of Gethsemane, when, withdrawing from His three sleeping dis- 
ciples, he "kneeled down/' and "fell on His face," in an agony? 
(xxvi. 36-44.) How did he know that an angel, on the morning 
of the resurrection, before the arrival of the women, had rolled 
back the stone, and sat upon it ? (xxviii. 2, 3.) How did he know 
the secret transaction between the high priest and the Eoman 
soldiers? (xxviii. 11-13.) 

We shall have to put questions exactly similar, and still more 
pressing, respecting St Mark. We shall ask how, not being 



THE EPISTLE OF JUDE. 



383 



an apostle, nor personally cognisant of the facts he narrates, it 
came to pass that he is more copious and exact in details than 
any other evangelist? How did all these little circumstances 
come to his knowledge, which he is the only one to give — he who 
wrote so late, and as distant in place as in time V' 1 How is it that 
he seems to have had the events still under his eyes, with an in- 
terest, a colouring, a freshness of memory which even an eye- 
witness could scarcely attain, if he were only an ordinary man 
In what document, moreover, could he have learnt that Jesus, after 
His ascension, sat down at the right hand of God? (Mark xvi. 29.) 
And as to Luke, who was not an apostle — would it be from Paul, 
as some have said, that he received the knowledge of so many 
facts narrated by himself alone ? — from Paul, who had no more 
than himself been a witness of the Saviour's life, and who had not 
taken Luke as his companion till the twentieth year of his ministry, 
(Acts xvi. 10,) — that is to say, at least forty-eight years after the 
events of the nativity recounted in his Gospel with so many de- 
tails? In what document did Luke (or Paul, if you please) find 
the two poetical prophecies which Elizabeth had uttered, sixty 
years before, in her humble dwelling " in the hill country," and 
which no other evangelist has reported ? In what document did 
he find the address of the angel to Zacharias ; or that of the arch- 
angel to Mary ; or the words of Simeon in the Temple ; or those 
of the heavenly host at Bethlehem? And this unknown docu- 
ment, who had taken the pains to write it, and to preserve it in 
secret so long, during the infancy of Jesus, and the thirty-five years 
of his retirement in Nazareth, and the twenty-five first years of 
Paul's ministry ? Who guarantees us the correctness of the words 
that Luke puts into the mouth of these holy persons and of these 
angels ? Who guarantees it, unless the God of the Scriptures — 
unless Jesus Christ, "the God of the holy prophets," as St John 

1 Aa Lardner has already shewn, and as may be collected from various passages, 
among others, Mark xvi. 20. 

2 Any one will be struck with our remarks on the Gospel of Mark, if he will 
take the pains to read, with this view, the details which this evangelist alone has 
given us— among others, i. 20, 29, 33, 35, 37, 45; ii. 2; iii. 5-9, 11, 17, 20, 21 ; 
iv. 13, 23, 24, 26, 29, 34, 36, 38 ; v. 29, 30, 32, 40, 41, 42; vi. 13, 38, 40, 50, 52, 
54, 56; vii. 2-4, 8, 13, 22, 24, 26-29, 34, 36, 38; viii. 7, 10, 14, 19, 22, 26; ix. 20, 
21, 22-25, 33, 35, 37-49; x. 46-52; xi. 13, 16, 18, 20; xii. 34, 11 ; xiii. 3, 37; xiv. 
40, 44, 51, 52, 58, 59, 68; xv. 7, 8, 21, 28, 29, 41, 44; xvi. 1, 3, 7-11, 14, 19. 



384 



THE SECOND CANON. 



calls Him, (Apoc. xxii. 6,) — Jesus Christ, who had caused those of 
the New Testament to speak, as well as those of the Old; and 
who had said to the Jewish people, "Behold, I send unto you 
prophets, .... and some of them ye shall kill and crucify, and 
some of them ye shall scourge in your synagogues, and persecute 
them from city to city/' (Matt, xxiii. 34,) — Jesus Christ, who 
"worked with them-' as it is said in the last verse of Mark's 
Gospel? And if it be asked in what document was Luke in- 
formed of that invisible angel who came from heaven to Jesus to 
strengthen Him, and appeared to Him alone, or that other angel 
of the Lord, alike invisible, who smote Herod Agrippa, in the 
year 44, when, seated on his throne, before all the people of 
Csesarea, he felt himself suddenly struck with excruciating pains, 1 
—if it be asked who saw this angel, or what document informed 
Luke respecting him, it must be replied, the same document 
which told Peter of the secret lie of Ananias and Sapphira, and 
Agabus of the future famine in the reign of Claudius, (Acts v. 3, 
xi. 28,) — which told St John the origin of the eternal Word, and 
His presence with God before the world was — which told of the 
coming of the great apostasy, and of the man of sin — which told 
the author of the Apocalypse of the most distant future of the 
Church and of the world — which also told Jude of the dispute of 
the archangel, and the prophecy of Enoch. As Eudolph Stier has 
well said, in his Commentary on the Epistle of Jude, " The two 
objected passages are explained by the apocalyptical contents of 
this epistle." 

It is, then, sufficiently manifest, that nothing can be conceived 
at once more antiscriptural and more illogical than to impugn the 
canonicity of a book for the sole reason that it narrates facts, the 
knowledge of which the author could only have received from God 
himself. This would be at once to ignore the inspiration which 
the Bible claims, and to take for granted the very point in ques- 
tion. If the book calls itself canonical, it calls itself inspired; 
and to deny its canonicity, solely on account of the revelations it 
professes to give us, is, in other words, to say, this book is not 
canonical because it is not canonical. This first supposition is, 
then, inadmissible ; and, on this ground, the objection drawn 

1 Acts xii. 23 ; Josephus, Antiq. Jud., xix., 7. 



THE EPISTLE OF JUDE. 



385 



from it loses all its value. But it rests, we have said, on other 
suppositions not less gratuitous, and not less erroneous. Here is 
the second : — 

375. It supposes that an inspired author cannot bring forward 
a fact mentioned in any uninspired book, without thereby guaran- 
teeing the whole book. This assumption is extravagant. The 
books of the New Testament report many facts already contained 
in the book of Maccabees, without professing on that account to 
bear testimony to it. St Paul quotes verses from Menander, 
Aratus, and Epimenides, 1 without designing to give any moral 
sanction to these pagan authors. And the same apostle, in the 
Second Epistle to Timothy, (iii 8,) without professing to guarantee 
in so doing the Chaldee paraphrases, speaks of the magicians 
Jannes and Jambres, whose names, omitted by Moses, but pre- 
served in the national histories or traditions, are found in Pliny, 2 
only forty years after Paul, and are read in the Targum of Jonathan 
in his paraphrase of the first and seventh chapters of Exodus. 3 
If, then, we admit for a moment that the book of The Ascension 
of Moses, and the pretended Book of Enoch had already mentioned 
before Jude the two facts of which the apostle speaks, it will not 
follow that he borrowed them from these books, nor that, in 
reporting them, he intended to give the least moral sanction to 
these two rhapsodies. 

Those even of the fathers who believed these books to be anterior 
to Jude were very far from regarding them as on this account 
worthy of belief in every part. " It was possible," said Origen, 4 
"that the apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit, knew what they 
could take in such writings, and what they ought to reject/' 

The objection, then, wants support on this second ground. 

37C. But this is not all ; for it assumes, in the third place, that 

1 1 Cor. xv. 33; Acts xvii. 28; Titus ii. 12. 

2 Lib. xxx., cap. i. He names only Jannes and Jotape. See Winer, Realwor- 
terbuch, art. Jambres. 

3 And on Num. xxii. 22, (Calmet's Dictionary, art. Jannes.) This learned man 
places Jonathan under Herod the Great, but Carpzov and Prideaux think that the 
author of this work was much later. See Keil, Einleitung ins A. Test, pp. 
191, 192. 

* Prologue of his Two Homilies on the Song of Songs. " Quid assumenduni 
ex illis esset scripturis, quidoe refutandum." 

2 B 



386 



THE SECOND CANON. 



the apostle (or, if you please, the Jew who professes to be Jude) 
would have admitted the apocryphal books as canonical. But 
this is what the Jews have never done, as we shall shew elsewhere 
in speaking of the apocryphal books of the Old Testament. 1 

377. Again, the objection assumes that Jude, the brother of 
James, (or, if you please, some Jew announcing himself to the 
churches as Jude,) would undertake to offer a Greek book to the 
faith of the Jewish Christians, relating to the mysteries of a time 
contemporaneous with Moses, or even with Enoch. Certainly, to 
admit such suppositions, a person must know very little of the 
opinions of the Jews of this period respecting the Greek historians, 
and, in particular, of what Josephus says about them. All the 
first and second chapters of his book against Apion is designed to 
shew that, of all writers, the Greeks are the least worthy of 
credence in what relates to the knowledge of antiquity. But the 
two apocryphal books which we are urged to regard as the autho- 
rities from which Jude has taken what he says of Enoch and 
Moses were Greek, and unknown to the Jews. No author that 
has come down to us ever speaks of them.2 

378. But, in the fifth place, that which is most strange in the 
objection is that it assumes that Jude (or the contemporary Jew 
who gave himself out to the churches as Jude) could have publicly 
placed his confidence in two writings so contemptible as The 
Ascension of Moses and the pretended Book of Enoch, in order 
to impose the quotations from them on the faith of Christian 
churches. 

As to The A scension of Moses, it was a Greek book known to 
the ancient fathers, but now completely lost, and no one insists 
upon it. 

But as to The Book of Enoch — another work also known to the 
ancient fathers 3 — (and long since lost as to its Greek text) — it is 
one of the most despicable relics of apocryphal antiquity. It had 
come down to us only in short fragments preserved by George 

1 Part II., Book II., Chap. II., 4, 5. 

2 Dr Lawrence believes that the Book of Enoch was composed by a Jew, but 
gives no proof of it. See Liicke, Einleitug in die Offenb., p. 11. 

3 Particularly Clement of Alexandria, (Adumbrat. in Ep. Jud. ;) and Origen, 
{rrepl dpxwv,) in., 2 ; and Didymus, (Enarrat. in Ep. Jud.) 



THE EPISTLE OF JUDE. 



387 



Syncellus, 1 (a Byzantine author of the eighth century,) when the 
celebrated traveller Bruce, at the end of the last century, brought 
from Abyssinia three copies which he had found there, translated 
into an Ethiopic dialect. 2 

"This work," says Sylvestre de Sacy, a is not worth the trouble 
of translating/' 3 Such a confusion of ideas prevails that the 
editor has felt himself compelled to transpose whole paragraphs 
and chapters,* which does not make it any better. He was not 
obliged to give good sense to that which had it not, and ought not 
to have altered them. 

"One finds in it," he adds, "absurd repetitions, a wearisome 
monotony, monstrous anachronisms, a striking incoherence, with- 
out speaking of a ridiculous system respecting the years and 
months, which imply the grossest ignorance on the part of the 
author, even for the times in which his book appeared." 

" In a word," de Sacy says again, " it is difficult to find any- 
thing more ridiculous or wearisome than this Book of Enoch ; — a 
singular book, full of fables and fictions. If sometimes we 
frown, we are more frequently tempted to smile, and we may well 
be astonished that this strange composition could obtain any 
credit in antiquity. This impression, which will be made on all 
who, like me, may have the courage to read the whole book, may 
suggest the inquiry whether additions made to the primitive text 
since the first ages of the Church have not rendered it more absurd 
than it was originally." 

Such, then, is the book from which Jude, as some dare to affirm, 
has taken his citations ! 

379. But, more than tins, and we hasten to say it, the whole 
objection falls to the ground, inasmuch as it rests entirely on a 
sixth supposition, still more worthless — on the pretended priority 

1 In his Chronogr. Scaliger was the first to make them known. 
s One of the three is in the National Library of Paris. 

8 Dr Lawrence has translated it in England, (Oxford, 1821,) and Sylvestre de 
Sacy has given an account of the book in two articles in the Journal des Savants, 
(September and October 1822,) from which we have extracted his judgment. 

4 For example, six verses of the ninetieth chapter in the ninety-second ; chaps, 
lx. and lxx. transferred to the end of the volume, on account of their gross ana- 
chronisms ; the twentieth chapter placed between the sixteenth and the seventeenth 
of the original. 



388 



THE SECOND CANON. 



of these two writings to the Epistle of Jude, while this priority- 
has for it only the opinion of some ancient fathers who were very 
often deceived on the question of forged books ; while we have, on 
the contrary, the strongest reasons for holding both of these writ- 
ings to be not only posterior to the epistle of the apostle, but 
fabricated with the express design of fraudulently corresponding 
with the words of Jude. 

We know with what a multitude of forged writings, calling 
themselves apostolic or prophetic, the first ages of the Church 
were deluged. These awkward productions, these lying books, 
were imagined by a dishonest zeal among the degenerate Chris- 
tians of Egypt and Asia to answer to some intimations of the 
sacred writers in their Gospels or epistles, and to represent certain 
books which were supposed to have been made or quoted by 
them. 

Thus, for example, because Paul, in his First Epistle to the 
Corinthians, appeared 1 to refer to a former letter which he had 
written to the same church, an epistle was composed by some one, 
designed to pass for the lost one, but abundantly betraying its 
counterfeit quality. 2 

Because the same apostle recommends the Colossians (iv. 16) to 
read the epistle which " came to them from Laodicea/' and which, 
according to all appearance, was no other than the Epistle to the 
Ephesians, (written at the same time, and intended to serve rather 
as a circular letter for the churches of Asia,) a writer has not been 
wanting to compose one, addressed to the Laodiceans, known in 
the days of Jerome, and of which this father says, "But it is 
rejected by all," (Sed ab omnibus exploditur)^ Because Paul, 
in his Second Epistle to Timothy, (iii. 8,) gives the names Jannes 
and Jambres to the magicians who opposed Moses, some one has 
been found to compose a book entitled, Jannes and Jambres, 
mentioned by Origen, 4 and put in the class of apocryphal books 
by Pope Gelasius.5 

1 We shall explain these facts in our Second Part, Propp. 427-432. 

2 Olshausen, Authenticity of the New Testament, chap. iv. 

3 In Catal., Erasmus calls it an epistle "quae nihil habet Pauli praeter vocviks 
aliquot ex caeteris ejus epistolis mendicatas." 4 Tract, xxxv. in Matt. 

5 Yet this decree itself is held to be a forgery by the bishops. Cosin on the 
Canon, 123, 130; Pearson, Vind. Ignat., i., cap. iv. 



THE EPISTLE OF JUDE. 



389 



Because Paul has said to the Galatians, (v. 6, vi. 15,) " In Jesus 
Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, 
but a new creation," some one had composed an Apocalypse of 
Moses, from which, George Syncellus tells us, the passage of Paul 
had been taken. 1 Because the same apostle had said to the 
Corinthians, " Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard," &c, (1 Cor. 
ii. 9.) some one forged an apocalypse of Elias, from which the 
heretics, in the time of Jerome, 2 pretended that Paul had borrowed 
his language. " These words," Origen 3 had said, " are found only 
in the secret books of Elias." 

It was in the same profane and lying spirit of the Greeks that 
about the same time were composed the Testament of the Tivelve 
Patriarchs, of which Origen* speaks, and of which Grabe, his editor, 
thinks that Tertullian has also spoken; 5 and the Ascension of 
Isaiah, which Dr Lawrence, in 1819, published in Ethiopic, with 
the Book of Enoch; and the Acts of Peter and Paul, of Andrew, 
and of John, and of the other Apostles ; and the Apocalypse of 
Peter, the Apocalypse of Paid, the Apocalypse of Thomas, the 
Preaching of Peter, the Apostolic Constitutions, the Gospel of 
Peter or of Matthew, the Homilies of Clement, the Doctrine of 
the Apostles, &c. 6 

It was, let us say, in the same spirit, and almost at the same 
time, that the Book of the Ascension of Moses and the Book of 
Enoch were fabricated, or, at least, the tenth chapter of the latter, 
the whole of which consists only of the short words cited by 
Jude. 

380. But there are other reasons which equally shew us in this 
book, or, at least, in its second chapter, a pious fraud, contrived 
to correspond with Jude. 

(1 .) First of all, we notice its extreme incoherence and evident 
marks of innumerable interpolations ; so that all critics who have 
studied it, not excepting Dr Lawrence, (who, having edited it, 

1 Page 27, edit, of Paris, fol. 1652. 

s Calmet (Dictionary) on the word Apocalypse. 

3 Homil. ultim. in Matt, xxvii. 9. 

4 In Jos., i., homil. 15. 8 Spicilegium, i., 133. 

8 A catalogue rauonne of all these spurious writings is to be found in the two 
works of John Albert Fabricius, entitled, " Codex Pseudepigraphus Veteus Testa- 
menti," and " Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti." 



390 



THE SECOND CANON. 



would naturally speak with most favour of it,) are obliged to 
declare that it was written at different times, and by different 

persons. 

(2.) The place so awkwardly given to the passage of Jude in a 
book which has 105 chapters. This passage, as we have said, 
forms by itself alone the second chapter; a fact which clearly 
enough betrays its late origin and intention. 

(3.) There is the prophecy of the seventy shepherds, 1 where the 
author alludes to the rulers of the Jewish nation, down to Herod 
the Great. The book could not be more ancient than that reign, 
but it might be much later. And since it has manifestly received 
numerous interpolations, these must be still more recent ; and the 
second chapter may be regarded as posterior to Jude. 

(4.) There are various passages which, according to Silvestre de 
Sacy, betray " a Christian hand/' particularly in the 19th and 
last section, (chap. 92.) Tertullian also tells us that the contem- 
porary Jews rejected this book because it spoke too much in 
favour of J[esus Christ. 2 

(5.) Lastly, by the concurrent tone of a great number of pas- 
sages, we may be assured that the forger was acquainted with the 
doctrine of the Holy Trinity. 3 

Section Sixth, 
testimonies of the second century. 

381. The Epistle of Jude is abundantly recommended to us 
by the most respectable witnesses of Christian antiquity. 

Though it contains only twenty-five verses, and was not written 
till towards the end of the first century, or the beginning of the 
second, yet we find it frequently cited in the same century, both 
in the East and West. 

It is recommended not only by allusions to its text which are 
disputable, such as are pointed out by Kirchhofer, 4 and by Lard- 
ner in Hermas, (Vis., iv., 3,) in Clement of Rome, (1 Cor. xi.,) in 

1 In chaps, lxxxviii.-xc. {Journal des Savants, p. 549.) 

2 See Calmet's Dictionary, art. Enoch. 

3 See especially chap, xlviii., ver. 2, 3, 5. (Journal des Savants, Sept. 1822, 
p. 551.) 4 Quellensammlung, &c, 1842. 



THE EPISTLE OF JUDE. 



391 



Polycarp, (ad Phil. ii. and iii.,) in the salutation which precedes 
the narrative of the martyrdom of Polycarp, in Theophilus of 
Antioch, and in Irenseus. 1 But it is especially recommended by 
the most precise quotations of the two fathers, whose testimony is 
the most valued in sacred criticism — Clement of Alexandria in 
the East, and Tertullian in the West. It is also in the canon of 
Muratori. 

382. As for Clement of Alexandria, he not only mentions him 
by name, but quotes entire the 5th, 6th, and 11th verses in his 
Paedagogue, (iii. 8,) and gives the intermediate verses (7, 8, 9, 
and 10) in an abridged form. He names him also when he 
quotes the 22d and 23d verses, in the sixth book of his Stromata, 
(vi., 3,) and the 1st verse in his Adumbrationes on the Catholic 
Epistles. 2 

383. As to Tertullian, we find him speaking thus in his book, 
De Cultu Faeminarum, (i. 3,) " Et accidit quod Enoch apud 
Judam apostolum testimonium possidet," — " And it happens that 
Enoch receives a testimony from the apostle Jude/' This cita- 
tion, made by the most ancient of the Latin fathers, is of great 
importance ; for it is most worthy of notice, that our epistle, 
notwithstanding its great brevity and comparatively late epoch, 
had already reached the distant churches of Western Africa, so as 
to be generally known and publicly cited as an epistle of the 
apostle Jude. 

As to the canon of Muratori, we have already quoted these 
words, (Prop. 197:) — " Epistola sane Judae et (superscripti) 
Johannis duae in catholica habentur" — "The Epistle of Jude 
and the two Epistles of John, which we have already mentioned, 
are numbered among the catholic scriptures." 

384. We shall understand the full value of these testimonies, if 
we call to mind what we have said (Propp. 337-340, 354-359) of 
James, the brother of Jude, and of Simon, his other brother, who 
succeeded him, and did not suffer martyrdom till the year 107. 
If the Epistle of Jude was so well known to the fathers of the 
same second century, both in the East and in the extreme parts of 
the West, it must have circulated from church to church during 

1 Haeres., iv., 70, p. 371. Oxon., 1702. 

3 Believed to be a translation by Casniodorus. 



392 



THE SECOND CANON. 



the lifetime of Simeon. How, in fact, could a letter, bearing the 
name of Jude, brother of James, have obtained such credit, if it 
had not had the assent of that apostle and of Simeon, and if it 
had not been really written by their brother ? 

We recollect what Hegesippus, a Jewish historian of the second 
century, 1 has told us of the grandsons of Jude. This holy family, 
devoted for three generations to the public service of the primitive 
churches of the central East, ought then to serve as confirmatory 
of the testimony of Jude. 

Section Seventh, 
testimonies of the third century. 

385. The third century equally renders full homage to this 
epistle in the writings of the most learned of its teachers. Origen 
cites it very often. He calls it a divine writing, and its author an 
apostle. He quotes the 8th and 9th verses in his epistles ; the 
6th verse once, at least, in his Fourth Homily on Ezekiel, and 
three times in his Commentary on Matthew, and again in his 
Commentary on John, and on the Epistle to the Romans ; the 
1st verse in his Commentary on Matthew. <( Petrus duabus 
epistolarum suarum personat tubis, (he says in his Sixth Homily 
on Joshua,) Jacobus quoque et Judas," — "Peter sounds the 
trumpet in his two epistles, as well as James and Jude." 2 

" Jude/' he says again, in his Commentary on Matthew, 3 " has 
written an epistle, of a small number of verses, (oXtyosnxov fiev,) 
indeed, but full of powerful words of heavenly grace, (ippcofjuevcov 
\6<ycov.) 

And, in the third book of his Commentaries on the Epistle to 
the Eomans, he says, quoting at length the 6th verse of Jude, 
Et nisi hac lege tenerentur nunquam, de eis diceret, SCRIPTURA 
DIVINA ; " Angelos quoque qui" &c. 

It is painful that Eusebius, after so many and such striking 
testimonies, should have given us the canon of this father (in his 

1 Quoted by Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., iii., 19, 20. See Prop. 366 f 

2 Translated, as we have said, by Rufinus, and come down to us only in this 

translation. 

3 Opp., torn, iii., p. 463, ed. Delarue, Paris, 1733 ; Huet, torn, i., p. 233. 



THE EPISTLE OF JUDE. 



393 



6th book, chap. 25) without making any mention of the Epistle of 
Jude. This courtly bishop, whose history has otherwise so much 
value, must be read on certain points with some caution. Lax as 
he was on points of holy doctrine, he was so sometimes in his 
estimates of the Scriptures. 

We find, in the same third century, the 6th verse of our 
epistle cited as to the sense, if not as to the precise terms, by 
Pamphilus of Berytus, in his Apology for Origenl 

We also find the 14th and loth verses cited by Cyprian, or 
rather by one of his contemporaries, in a treatise to Novatian, 2 
which is included in the collection of his works. 

Section Eighth, 
testimonies of the fourth century. 

386. The testimonies of the fourth century are remarkably 
abundant both in the East and West. 

In the East, Athanasius, in his Festive Epistle, and in his 
Synopsis Sacrae Scripturae ; Ephrem, the Syrian, in his Com- 
mentary on the 3d Chapter of Genesis, and in his Treatise on 
Unchastity, where he quotes our epistle at length ; 3 Cyril of Jeru- 
salem, in his Catecheses; Chrysostom, in his discourse on the False 
Prophets; Epiphanius, in his book against Heresies; Gregory 
of Nazianzus ; Didymus of Alexandria ; the false Dionysius, the 
Areopagite ; and the Council of Laodicea, (in its 60th canon.) 
In the West, Lucifer of Cagliari, Philastrius of Brescia, Amhrose 
of Milan, Jerome, (who cites our epistle in more than a dozen of 
his works ;) the same Council of Carthage which was held, it is 
asserted, under the eyes of Augustin, in 397. 

Eusebius places it in the rank of the antilegomena ; but takes 
care to add, twice, that the epistle was acknowledged by many, 
and that it was customary to read it publicly with the other 
epistles in most of the churches. 4 

It must be carefully noticed that he is the first of the fathers 

1 Origen, Opp., torn, iv., p. 23. 

3 Quod lapsis spea veniae non sit deneganda, ed. Maur. Paris, 1725, p. 17. 

3 Opp. Graec., torn, iii., p. 62. See Eichhorn, iv., p. 441. 

4 Hist. Eccl., iii., 25, vi., 13, 14, ii., 33. See Prop. 46. 



394 



THE SECOND CANON. 



who speaks of doubts entertained relative to this epistle ; and we 
have just seen, in the case of Origen, his unjust partiality on this 
point. These doubts of which he speaks had no historical 
foundation ; and we learn, at a later period, from Didymus and 
Jerome, that they were owing to the pretended apocryphal cita- 
tions of Jude about Moses and Enoch. 



CHAPTEK VX 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE ANTILEGOMENA. 

387. We must first of all recollect once more, that if we suppose 
the New Testament to be divided into twenty-six equal parts, 
all that we are going to say of the second canon relates only to 
one of these twenty-six parts. And another fact ought not to be 
forgotten, which marks that slow and silent process of examination 
by which a secret Providence designed to conduct at last all the 
churches of the East and West to that marvellous unity in which 
we have seen them remain to this day for 1500 years. It is that, 
during this long and laborious exercise of the consciences of 
Christians, if there was a number greater or less of churches and 
of respectable teachers who, suspending their judgment, still har- 
boured doubts of this or the other of the five short epistles ; yet, 
at the same time, these same epistles never ceased to be regarded 
as canonical by a part, and most frequently by the greatest part, 
of the Christian churches. 

388. It must be remarked, too, that, in the primitive churches, 
the books of the second canon never occupied the same position 
as the apocryphal books of the Old Testament. The canonicity 
of the five epistles was at first, indeed, contested in several places ; 
but it was never absolutely rejected, whilst it was quite otherwise 
with the apocryphal books. The latter, during the same period, 
instead of being objects of doubt, were resolutely rejected every- 
where from the inspired collection ; though they were often re- 
spected under the character of ecclesiastical books, that is to say 
they were classed, as by the Anglican Church in the present day, 



396 



THE ANTILEGOMENA. 



among writings useful to be read in certain assemblies of the 
Church. But to say then that such and such of our short epistles 
was an object of doubt, was to say that it was thought possible 
some day to see these researches satisfied and these doubts re- 
moved. And we know that in fact the doubts ceased, and that 
the five epistles, controverted for a time, were at last everywhere 
received. 

We shall shew elsewhere how it has not been permitted to the 
churches, though divided so widely among themselves on every 
other subject, to be so on this, and how Divine Providence has 
here evidently displayed His all-powerful hand. 

389. But it must be especially remarked here, and ought 
strongly to confirm our confidence in the final results of this long 
exercise of conscientious scruples, that this labour has always been 
pursued under a system of full independence and mutual support. 
This fact is very extraordinary ; it impresses on the sacred collec- 
tion a very remarkable character, and we shall have to examine it 
more closely under a most elevated point of view. Certainly, 
when we consider that the examination of the first Christians 
relative to the second canon lasted two centuries and a half, and 
that, nevertheless, it was always carried on with perfect liberty, 
every teacher having been able to continue his inquiries, and 
freely publish his doubts in reference to this or the other book of 
the second canon, without the churches having been seen to con- 
demn one another on this important point; when we see these 
long and free investigations produce at last the unanimous agree- 
ment which all the churches in Christendom present on this point 
alone for 1500 years, we then receive a powerful impression of 
the secret and sovereign agency which has conducted this holy 
affair throughout. But we must abstain for the present from 
dwelling on this point of view, and speak here only of the power- 
ful historical testimony rendered by so free an agreement to the 
canon of Scripture. How admirable it is that, in the very ages 
when so many acts of ecclesiastical violence were accomplished 
everywhere to obtain unity on every other point, yet without ob- 
taining it, we can nowhere find that any act of authority ever inter- 
posed on this — no collective influence of bishops — no prescription 
of the civil power — no decrees of councils to impose on believers 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 



397 



such or such a book, or to make them accept a complete collection, 
of the Scriptures, before the time of personal conviction ! 

It was thus that Christians all over the world, satisfied by 
degrees, added to their sacred canon one after another those of the 
short late epistles about which some churches had hesitated, until 
at last their unanimous agreement came to give a reason to those 
among them who had never doubted. 

390. We have already stated the reasons why some of the primi- 
tive churches delayed receiving into their collection the shorter 
epistles, and more particularly those of John and Jude ; but we 
may still point out some others. For example, it must be con- 
sidered that, if the epistles of Paul, addressed at first to certain 
persons or certain churches, owing to this one circumstance, would 
be accepted from the first moment, (the originals, for example, 
being preserved even to the days of Tertullian in the apostolic 
churches,) 1 it could not be thus with the three short letters of 
John and of Jude, which, not sent directly to any particular church, 
had not, to secure their general reception, either the authority of a 
writer still living, nor even the testimony of a depository pointed 
out by him. 

In the second place, it must be expected during this long process 
of examination, that the churches, according to their very different 
circumstances, would arrive at different judgments. Some in a 
better position for being more readily satisfied, would be the first 
to receive the entire canon ; others, at a greater distance, would 
suspend their judgment while waiting for fresh light; others, 
again, preoccupied by certain objections, (which they were not 
yet in a condition to resolve,) would retain their doubts, and allow 
themselves time for examination. We can understand, for example, 
that churches which spoke the Syriac language must have received 

1 De Praescriptione Haereticor., cap. xxxvi. " Come now, thou who wishest 
to exercise thy curiosity to better purpose in the business of thy salvation," he 
writes in the year 207, " run through the apostolic churches, in which the very 
chairs of the apostles are occupied, and where their authentic letters are recited, 
uttering their voice and representing the.ij countenance, (apud quo ipsae authen- 
ticae litterae eorum recitantur, sonantes vocem et repraesentantes faciein uniuscu- 
jusque.) Is Achaia near thee? thou hast Corinth. If thou art not far from 
Macedon, thou hast Philippi — thou hast Thessalonica. If thou art able to reach 
Asia, thou hast Ephesus. If thou art near Italy, thou hast Hume," &c. 



398 



THE ANTILEGOMENA. 



the Epistle of James from the year 62 ; while their respectful 
attachment for their admirable Peshito version would dispose them 
to receive very slowly what was not included in it from the earliest 
times. It was in this way that one church arrived at conviction 
after another church, and that all were led by this patient and 
sure labour to receive at last the whole canon. 

391. It is of importance to remark, that it was not even desir- 
able that the five late epistles (we might almost call them post- 
humous) should obtain a very prompt acceptance. 

If the twenty sacred books of the first canon, recommended by 
the ministry and presence of the apostles, were immediately re- 
ceived, it was expedient, on the contrary, as to the five epistles, 
that every teacher, and every church, before giving them a place 
in the canon, should attentively examine their origin, and inform 
themselves of all their claims, in order to guard with the greatest 
care against confounding the Scripture with those numerous forged 
books which were then in circulation under supposititious names. 
In the midst of this confusion it was needful, in order to decide, 
that they should arrive at the most entire certainty respecting 
their authenticity. Such a labour of examination was therefore 
necessary, which, for a part of the churches, demanded much 
patience and much time, and was carried on without partiality or 
precipitation, without human compulsion, and in the most perfect 
liberty. 

392. Thus, then, these very doubts with which many churches 
began on the subject of the antilegomena, far from disquieting 
our faith, should go to confirm it. For they give us, in the first 
place, the assurance, that not only the first collection of our Scrip- 
tures, but that each of the books separately, with which it was to 
be enlarged, underwent, before its admittance, the jealous, free, and 
sacredly severe scrutiny of the universal Church, without any 
species of constraint being employed to enforce its acceptance. 

Secondly, these very doubts of some churches on the subject 
of the second canon, if we compare them with the immediate 
unanimity of their agreement on the subject of the first, give us 
three valuable assurances respecting both canons. 

And first, as to the twenty sacred books of which the first canon 
was composed, these hesitations shew us that no reason of doubt 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 



399 



whatever presented itself to any of the primitive churches in the 
course of the three first centuries. 

And as to the second canon, these very hesitations of some 
churches testify to us that those who, being better informed in 
the same age, did not hesitate, had found from the first sufficient 
reasons to receive our five small epistles on their first appearance. 

Lastly, these very delays testify to us that when all these 
churches, at first hesitating, ended in agfeeing with those who 
from their better position had never doubted, they must have 
had before their eyes most convincing proofs in order to give up 
their first opposition. 

It is thus that they were led by the patient and sure action 
of Divine Providence to that striking agreement which we see 
them shew down to the present day for fifteen centuries ; the 
admirable result of their researches and of their liberty. 

393. To these sacred doubts of the primitive churches, to their 
jealousies and continual researches, we are indebted for another 
precious fact attested by history, namely, " that the Church has 
never received into the canon any book of which, at a later period, 
it has been obliged to acknowledge the illegitimacy." I speak of 
the New Testament, the volume which is committed to us, and 
not of the Old, of which the Jews are the only true depositaries ; 1 
for we grant that, with respect to the latter, the priests of Eome 
have allowed themselves some late liberties, but without any 
consequence : late, we say, since it is only in the sixteenth century 
of Christianity, and without any logical consequence, we say again, 
(at least for the doctrine of the canon ;) since we know with 
Athanasius, and we repeat with the whole Eastern church, 2 that 
" the Christian Church of the New Testament receives from the 
Hebrew Church of the Old Testament the sacred books of that 
Testament," because " to the Jews," as St Paul has said, (Rom. iii. 
2,) "have been committed the oracles of God." When we say, 
that "the ancient Church has never received into its canon any 
book of which, at a later period, it has been obliged to acknow- 
ledge the illegitimacy," some persons perhaps will be tempted to 

1 Rom. iii. 2. 

2 These words are from the " Great Catechism of the Orthodox Catholic Eastern 
Church, approved by the Holy Synod." Moscow, L83& 



400 



THE ANTILEGOMENA. 



set in opposition to us that kind of approbation given in some 
churches during the second, third, and fourth centuries to certain 
authentic but not canonical writings, such as the letter of the 
Eoman Clement to the Corinthians, or even to apocryphal or 
spurious books, (yoOa,) such as The Shepherd of Hernias and 
The Apocalypse of Peter. 

But it would be without foundation for any one to represent 
the partial use that certain churches may have made of these 
books for their public reading, as a recognition of their canonicity. 
On the contrary, this fact examined more closely, and taken in 
connexion with the general usages of the Church at that period, 
far from compromising the true canon, only serves to confirm it, 
as Dr Thiersch has very clearly shewn in his essay " on the Re- 
storation of the Historical Stand-point for the Criticism of the 
New Testament." 1 

394. " At the end of the first century/' he says, " the Church, 
henceforth deprived of the presence of the apostles, and pene- 
trated with a spirit (sometimes excessive) of holy jealousy for 
them, redoubled their attachment for the scriptures of the first 
canon, and assumed a character eminently conservative, which 
would be on its guard against every innovation. The use of its 
first canon was already consecrated and unassailable. Towards 
the third part of the second century, the generation of those who 
had personally known the apostles began to be extinct. Some 
believers, such as Papias, devoted themselves to collect the last 
traditions of the disciples of the Lord, to save them from oblivion ; 
but it was not till the reign of Antoninus Pius, during the second 
third of the century, that the first beginnings appeared of eccle- 
siastical science. Towards the end of the same century, in the 
time of Clement of Alexandria and Irenseus, there was a disposi- 
tion to search out the very few and short writings composed after 
the appearance of the New Testament. Irenseus called to his aid 
against the Gnostics of his time, the letter (Ifcavcordrrju) of the 
Roman Clement to the Corinthians, that of Polycarp to the Philip- 
pians, and The Shepherd of Hernias. For to fill up this great 
void of literature and history, the pious teacher appeared to have 

1 Versuch zur Wiederherstellimg des historischen Standpuncts fiir die Critik 
des K T., p. 366 and following, the beginning of his sixth chapter, &c. 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 



401 



possessed no other remains of primitive Christian antiquity but 
these three authors, and perhaps the letters of Ignatius. Yet these 
feeble relics appeared more precious in proportion to their few- 
ness ; so that, if God had not interposed, it might have happened 
that the extravagant lovers of antiquity would have attributed 
more value to them than they really possessed. But this was not 
the case with Irenseus, On the contrary, he shewed himself very 
prudent in this respect, and he is, of all the fathers, the most con- 
formed to the Scriptures, as he is, at the same time, the most faith- 
ful representative of the true tradition of the primitive churches. 
While he was combating in Gaul the heresies of his age, his con- 
temporary Clement, who, at Alexandria in Egypt, attempted to 
associate with Christianity an impure mixture of a stoical and 
mystic Platonism, was, on the contrary, the one among the fathers 
who was at the greatest distance from the spirit of the apostles, as 
well as from the true tradition ; and he was also the father who 
occupied himself most with the apocryphal writings of his time. 
He is the first who mentions the Epistle of Barnabas, the Apoca- 
lypse of Peter, and the Preaching (fcrjpvyfjLa) of Peter, and who, 
citing the Gospel of the Egyptians to refute the heretics, endea- 
voured to affix a plausible sense to the mystic fancies of that 
book. 

" And yet even with Clement of Alexandria the canon remained 
intact, and you find in his writings the difference clearly expressed 
which the Church then placed between the Divine Scriptures and 
all other books. Even when he pays a literary attention to the 
Gospel of the Egyptians, he distinguishes it very clearly from the 
four canonical Gospels. 

" Towards the end of the second century, the anagnosis of a book 
gave it a sanction, and constituted it, in the eyes of the Church, an 
inspired scripture ; for they then admitted to that honour of public 
reading no other books but those which were acknowledged as 
Divine and canonical. But it was not so after that epoch. The 
Church from that time was widely extended, and the worship 
having taken new development, the notion of mystery was intro- 
duced into it, in imitation of the mystery of the Gentiles ; and as 
they distinguished carefully the penitents and the catechumens 
from the faithful and the consecrated, so they came to distinguish 

2 



402 



THE ANTILEGOMENA. 



also different degrees in the use of the Scriptures, and in that of 
the other books which were read in public. Around the primitive 
canon the books of the second canon came to be placed in the first 
rank, which they did not dare to assimilate entirely to the first ; 
then around these some other writings which were held to be 
edifying and deserving of respect, but which, though admitted to 
be read, (avcvyiyvcocrfco/jLeva,) and thereby SeSr)/jLo<ri,evfjLeva, (as 
Eusebius terms it,) — that is, set apart for public and popular use, 
— they were not evhtaOrjKa, included in the scriptures of the New 
Testament. Henceforward, then, the public reading being no 
longer a recognition of canonicity, a new class of books was 
formed, called ecclesiastical, which had not been used formerly in 
worship, but which came to take their place in the train of the 
books called canonical. In many churches The Shepherd of 
Hermas, and even other writings of an inferior rank, were read 
to the catechumens ; but in doing this there was no intention of 
touching the canon of the primitive books, and the notion of the 
bounds of the canon remained complete and universal, as any one 
may be satisfied by reading Origen, Eusebius, and the various 
authors whom we have cited." 

395. Another kind of public readings, held on certain days 
of the year, was also introduced during the second century in 
some churches for the celebration of the anniversaries of the 
martyrs, {f^jikpai <yeve6\iai, ;) for on these days the narrative 
of their death was read over their graves, 1 as we see, for the 
first time, in the case of the epistle of the church at Smyrna on 
the death of Polycarp.2 It was by an analogous custom that at 
Corinth, even two or three centuries after, on a certain day of the 
year, the letter of Clement of Eome to the primitive church of 
that city was read over ; and, besides, on account of its antiquity 
and the name of its author, this letter approached nearer than any 
other uncanonical writing to the authority attributed to the second 
canon, so that Eusebius tells us (vi., 12) that in many churches, 
and in Csesarea among others, {jcaO' ^a?,) it had been long made 
a part of the public reading, (BeSv/jLoatev/jLevnv.) But there was 
still a great difference between this use of it and the acknowledg- 

1 Hence the term legends, {writings to be read.) 

2 'E'Tiffrb'kyi iyxvx'kioi, cap. xviii. 



THE PUBLIC READINGS. 



403 



nient of it as belonging to the canon. So Eusebius, in his famous 
twenty-fifth chapter, (book iii,) takes great care not to put it, we 
do not say in the rank of the first canon, but even in that of the 
second ; at the same time, he avoids placing it among the apocry- 
phal or spurious books, (eV rot? voOols.) If he calls it incontro- 
verted, (ofioXoyovfievr),) (iii., 38,) it is evidently in the sense of its 
authenticity, not of its canonicity. He esteems it very highly, 
("a majestic and admirable epistle," he calls it,) but does not 
make it a canonical book. 

We find it placed, indeed, at the end of the fourth volume of the 
New Testament of the famous Alexandrian manuscript of Cyril 
Lucas. But this fact is of no weight as regards the canon, since 
we also find in the same manuscript, at the end of this epistle, 
the second pretended epistle of Clement, an epistle of Athanasius 
to Marceliinus, the apocryphal psalms attributed to Solomon, and 
fourteen hymns, of which the eleventh is in honour of the Virgin 
Mary, (tt)? OeoroKov) 

396. There was yet another development which took place 
later in the readings of the Church, but not till the fourth cen- 
tury. We refer to the homilies. Justin Martyr 1 tells us that, in 
the assemblies of his time, " after the reader (of the Scriptures) 
had finished, {jravaa^kvov rov avayLvcocncovTOs,) the president 
(o Trpoeo-TCDs) delivers a discourse of admonition and exhortation, 
(Sia \6yov T7)v vovOealav ical TrpoKXrjatv .... iroLelraL.)" But 
we do not learn that, till the second or third century, any of these 
discourses (Xoywv) were committed to writing. Origen is the 
first father of whom any homilies are extant. It became the 
practice, in course of time, to read in some churches the homilies 
of the most celebrated teachers. Jerome informs us that was the 
case with the Syriac sermons of Ephrem. 2 " He had acquired 
such renown," he says, (ad tantam venit claritudinem,) " that his 
discourses, after the reading of the Scriptures, were publicly re- 
cited." We know, also, that the same honour was shewn, at a 
later period, to those of Gregory, Chrysostoin, and Augustin. 
But these recitations, as we have seen, only took place post lec- 

1 First Apology, ch. lxvii. 
3 De Vivis Illustr., cap. cv. 



404 



THE ANTTLEGOMENA. 



tionem Scripturarwm. They might be a substitute for preaching, 
but never for the Word of God. 

397. Lastly, here and there, as far as we can gather from some 
very isolated facts, when the limits of the canon had been firmly 
established, it might happen that a bishop permitted in his church, 
after the reading of the Scriptures, that of some apocryphal or 
spurious (voOov) book, if the book appeared to him orthodox in 
its doctrine, and pure in its morality. An example has been 
cited from Eusebius, (vi., 12,) which some persons might be dis- 
posed to abuse, but which seems rather to confirm the doctrine of 
the canon. It relates to a pretended Gospel of Peter, which 
some members of the church at Ehosus (in Cilicia) desired to 
use, not as a canonical scripture, but as an edifying book. Se- 
rapion, then bishop, tells us, "that being come to them without 
knowing the book, and without having gone through it, (jirj 
8ie\6<pv,) because he believed it conformable to the faith, he had 
said to them, £ If it is only this that causes your disputes, let it be 
read.' But now, (he writes,) after what has been told me, and 
taking into consideration that it has been used in favour of the 
Docetae, I have read it ; and, having found, among many things 
that are conform able to the sound doctrine of the Saviour, teach- 
ings that differ from it, I have placed them under your inspection, 
hoping shortly to be with you." He then makes an extract, with 
a refutation, exposing its falsehoods, (aTreXey^cov ra i|rei;Sw? iv 
avrS elprjfjuiva.) " As to us, my brethren/' he adds, " we receive 
Peter, and the other apostles, as Christ himself ; but as to the 
writings which are given to us falsely under their name, (ra Se 
Qvofjuari avrcov ^evhenrL'ypa^a^ we, as experienced persons, (e/ju- 
7T€ipoh) reject them, knowing that we have not received such from 
our predecessors, (on ra, roiavra ov TrapeXdfio/jLev,)" 

It is thus that this accidental oversight of Serapion serves to 
shew the ordinary vigilance of the pastors of the second and third 
centuries, and " that the exception in this case, as often happens," 
says Dr Thiersch, " serves only to confirm the rule." 

398. There exist, as we have said, among the seven catholic 
epistles, affinities and points of coincidence, each of them being a 
testimony to the authenticity of some others. We shall give 
some examples. 



AFFINITIES OF THE CATHOLIC EPISTLES. 



405 



(1.) A modem author 1 has noticed an interesting connexion 
between the First Epistle of Peter and the second of John. 

The epistle of Peter, addressed from Babylon to the elect Jews 
scattered through the provinces of Asia Minor, ends with a salu- 
tation of that (church) "which is at Babylon, elected together with 
you and Mark" The epistle of John, on the other hand, addressed 
on the part of " the elder to the elect lady (i/cXe/cry Kvpla) and 
her children'' ends with a salutation "from the children of her 
elect sister." It has often been disputed whether the elect sister 
and the elect lady are two persons, as most moderns have thought, 
or two churches, as most of the ancients thought, and as Michaelis 
believes, according to which Kvpta would be an ellipsis for Kvpia 
ifc/cXvo-la, an expression which, among the ancient Greeks, and 
especially at Athens, meant a regidar, fixed assembly of the 
people, and which, in St John, might design a church regularly 
assembled every Lord's-day. 

The First Epistle of John, according to the tradition of the 
ancients, 2 was addressed to the Parthians, among whom (as we 
know from Philo and Josephus) 3 there was an immense multitude 
of Jews. And thus in the same manner as Peter had written his 
first epistle to the Jewish Christians dispersed through Asia, 
(1 Pet. i. 1,) John might have addressed his first to the Jewish 
Christians scattered through Babylonia and the other provinces 
of the Parthians. 

But Clement of Alexandria, in a work of which we have only a 
Latin translation,* has also said that the Second Epistle of John 
is addressed to the Parthians, and the Latin translator having 
mistaken HapOlovs for irapQkvovs, has translated it Secunda 
Johannis Epistola quae ad Virgines inscripta, while there is not 
a word in it that concerns virgins. And the same Clement has 
said elsewhere "that this Second Epistle of John was written to a 
certain elect Babylonian/' and thinks (like Jerome) that the word 
elect means, not an elect person, but an elect church. 

1 Dr Wordsworth in his eleventh discourse on the Canon, p. 277. Loudon, 1848. 

2 Estius, in Ep. 1 Joh. Praef., p. 201, (Rouen, 1709.) " Veterum traditio est ad 
Parthos scriptam esse Johannis epistolam. Hunc tituluin ei tribuunt Hyginus 
Papa . . . . et ipse Augustiuus." — Quacst. Evang., ii., 39. 

3 Philo, De Legat. ad Caium, 36 ; Josephus, Antiq., xxiii., 12. 

4 Adumbrat, pp. 10, 11. 



406 



THE ANTILEGOMENA. 



Thus, then, the apostle of the circumcision addressed from 
Babylon his first epistle to the Jews of the Asiatic Dispersion — a 
province assigned to John — and ended it with this salutation, — 
Your co-elect sister who is at Babylon (f) ev jSaftdkwvi o-vve/c- 
XeKTrj) salutes you, and so does Marcus my son ; and on his side 
John, the apostle of the provinces of Asia, addressed his " to the 
elect Church," and ends in his turn with the salutation — "The 
children of thy elect sister greet thee, who art at Babylon." 

We must here call to mind that triple dispersion of the Jews, 
as Luke has stated it, on the day of Pentecost, (Acts ii. 8.) 

[1.] " Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and the dwellers in Meso- 
potamia." This was the dispersion, subject to the Parthians, 
with Babylon for the metropolis. [2.] " Those who inhabit Judea, 
Cappadocia, Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia." This 
was the dispersion of Asia. [3.] " Egypt, and the parts of Libya 
about Cyrene." This was the dispersion of Africa. These three 
dispersions which Peter had addressed at the Pentecost, and which 
formed his spiritual province, had been each the object of his 
apostolic care : that of Babylon, by the visit he made to it in 
person ; that of Asia, by the letter which he wrote from Babylon; 
that of Africa, by the mission of his son Mark, the first bishop of 
Alexandria. 1 

These first relations between the catholic epistles, though founded 
on a disputable interpretation, have seemed to us worthy of notice; 
but we have others. 

399. (2.) Peter, writing his first epistle after that of James, 
bears him an indirect but significant testimony, by adopting and 
incorporating, as we have already said, a great many of his peculiar 
traits. 

(3.) Jude, whose epistle followed not only that of James, but 
even the second of Peter, introduces himself as a brother of that 
James who was known to the churches by his ministry, by his 
epistle, and by his martyrdom, (in the year 62.) 

(4.) The same Jude adopts very freely, as we have said, the 
language of the Second Epistle of Peter, as Peter in his first 
adopted that of James. 

(5.) Jude even goes so far as to declare that he cites one of the 

1 Jerome, Catal. Scriptor. Eccl., viii. 



AFFINITIES OF THE CATHOLIC EPISTLES. 



407 



apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ (ver. 17) when he reports in its 
own terms a prophecy of the Second Epistle of Peter. 

(6.) Peter, in his turn, in his second epistle, earnestly recom- 
mends all the epistles of Paul, his beloved brother, putting them 
on a level with the rest of the scriptures, and denouncing eternal 
destruction to those who wrest them. 

(7.) The same Peter in his second epistle alludes to the first, 

Ciii i.) 

(8.) John blends and corroborates the fourfold testimony of his 
Gospel and his three epistles by employing in a striking manner 
the same thoughts and the same expressions. 

(9.) As John in the fourth Gospel attests the authority of the 
three others by the very care he has taken to be silent on almost 
all the events already reported in them, so also we may say that 
in his three epistles the same apostle attests the authenticity of 
the epistles of Peter and Paul by the silence he preserves on the 
important doctrines already so abundantly expounded by these 
two great apostles. In dilating only on the precepts of Christian 
love, John silently informs us of the entire approbation he gives 
to these teachings. This is an observation of Dr Wordsworth.! 

400. We leave these considerations, which may have their in- 
terest, but the importance of which disappears before thoughts of 
a more general and elevated order that are about to occupy our 
attention. 

We believe that we have hitherto sufficiently demonstrated from 
history the incomparable authenticity of the New Testament ; but 
we have indicated at the outset that to arrive at the same con- 
clusions in reference to the two Testaments, there is a still more 
excellent way. 

This is the way of Faith. It will be the subject of our Second 
Part. 

1 On the Canon, p. 285. 



PAET SECOND. 
THE METHOD OF FAITH. 



401. We are come to what, after all, forms the surest foundation 
of our confidence relative to the entire collection of the Scriptures. 

But it will be necessary, before entering on this important 
subject, to premise two observations. 

The first is, that our inquiry is no longer confined to the New 
Testament. Henceforward we shall treat of the entire canon. 

In the second place, we feel bound to forewarn the reader that, 
in this Second Part of our task, we do not address exactly the same 
class of persons as in the first. In the preceding pages, our argu- 
ments were presented indifferently to believers and unbelievers. 
Henceforward it is sufficiently evident, that in explaining reasons 
of faith we address ourselves to men of faith — to readers who, 
without being quite clear respecting the entire collection of our 
sacred books, are yet persuaded that, in a part at least of what 
the Scripture calls " the oracles of God/' it is God himself who 
speaks to us ; so that there its teachings must be received with 
all confidence as given by " the Holy Spirit, sent down from 
heaven." 

402. To you, then, earnest though unconfirmed Christians, we 
shall henceforward speak of the canon ; to you, who read with 
reverence what you acknowledge of the Scriptures, and who wish 
with an upright heart to serve the living and true God according 
to His Word, and to wait for His Son Jesus from heaven, who will 
soon judge the living and the dead by that Word. We appeal to 
that part of the Scriptures which you acknowledge and revere, 
and from this our arguments will be taken. 



412 



THE DOCTEINE OP THE CANON. 



403. Let it be carefully noted, we are not here taking the 
question for granted; nor shall we attempt to establish it by 
anything contained in itself. When we appeal to the faith to 
justify the canon in all its parts, when we avail ourselves for this 
purpose of a positive dogma, when we draw this dogma from the 
New Testament, reduced, if you please, to narrower dimensions, 
we by no means place the Christian reader in an illogical circle, 
since this positive dogma is given us by a part of the Scriptures 
that none of the adversaries of the canon have ever called in 
question ; not even Marcion, nor Basilides, nor Heracleon, nor 
Ptolemy ; not even, in our own day, the Tubingen school. More- 
over, we shall confirm its sense and value by the conduct of God 
during all the ages of His antecedent revelations, and by an as- 
semblage of striking and incontestable facts. 

Yet, before expounding this doctrine of the canon, and passing 
in this manner from the method of science to that of faith, it will 
be desirable to compare in some points these two sources of in- 
formation, and the two kinds of conviction they are fitted to 
produce. 



BOOK I 

THE TWO METHODS OPEN FOR THE KNOWLEDGE 
OF THE CANON. 



404. The Church, as we have said, 1 has two methods of attaining 
satisfaction respecting the entire collection of the Scriptures — that 
of science and that of faith : that of science, which appeals to 
history ; and that of faith, which appeals to a doctrine. We have 
hitherto proceeded along the first ; we now enter on the second. 

These two methods are sure, rational, and accessible ; and each 
has its advantages ; yet the most excellent, the most rational, the 
most indispensable, and the most sure, is the method of faith. 



1 Prop. 5, p. 2. 



CHAPTER L 



COMPARISON OF THESE TWO METHODS. 

405. Science, in studying the history of the Sacred Volume, pre- 
sents to our notice at once two very important facts. There is, 
in the first place, the wonderful unanimity with which all the 
churches at the present day throughout the world, even those 
most opposed to one another in their institutions and doctrines, 
agree in offering us for fifteen centuries one and the same canon 
of the New Testament. Next, that among the twenty-seven books 
of which it is composed, twenty can be counted which, even before 
these fifteen last centuries, and from the days of the apostles, have 
never ceased to be received by all Christendom. 

To render these two great facts more striking, science, studying 
the history of the first ages with the greatest care, shews us, first 
of all, how the lives of almost all the apostles being remarkably 
prolonged, enabled the primitive Church to have recourse to these 
men of God, for more than sixty years, to assure her of the canon 
as it was gradually formed ; so that, under their sanction, the 
numberless churches already spread over the world received the 
living oracles of God to transmit them to us. Moreover, it ac- 
quaints us with the sacred custom of all the churches as to the 
public reading of the Scriptures ; and exhibits to us, under the 
universal control of the A nagnosis, the completion of the canon, 
and its maintenance everywhere, without constraint, noise, or 
dispute. It does more : It seeks out in the history of Christian 
literature all the primitive monuments of the canon, and every- 
where it finds incontestable traces of it ; everywhere the same 
voice of confirmation is heard. In a word, nothing can be more 



THE TWO METHODS COMPARED. 



415 



conclusive or more solid, in a matter of historic testimony, than 
the majestic assemblage of proofs accumulated in favour of the 
first canon ; and we are constrained to acknowledge that the 
literary history of the whole world offers no example of an authen- 
ticity so strongly guaranteed. 

406. Yet, when we have studied these facts, science presents 
us with two others of a nature to disturb our confidence. The 
first is, that among the twenty-seven writings of the New Testa- 
ment there are two which, though universally received during the 
two first ages of the Church, were questioned for a certain time 
at the beginning of the third ; and the second is, that five short, 
later epistles, though recognised from the beginning by a great 
number, (it has even been said by the greatest number,) were not 
received by all till the first quarter of the fourth century. From 
these two facts naturally arise the two following questions : — 

If the wonderful unanimity of the first Christians respecting 
twenty books of the first canon is fitted to inspire the Church with 
such strong assurance, will there not be, in their temporary hesi- 
tation about the seven other books, something to shake her con- 
fidence in the part of the canon thus disputed, and perhaps in the 
whole canon ? And, on the other hand, if these books are, after 
all, divine, how is it that they were not from the first universally 
received ? We believe it has been satisfactorily shewn, that the 
same science which has raised this twofold objection is perfectly 
competent to answer it. It gives the reasons of the alleged facts. 
It exhibits in broad daylight the usages of the ancient Church ; it 
explains why the second canon was formed more slowly ; it shews 
that the second-first, for a time the object of doctrinal prejudices, 
was never assailed by historical objections ; it shews that the 
hesitation of a part of the primitive churches respecting the 
second, attests their vigilant jealousy for the sacred deposits ; it 
attests the astonishing Christian liberty which never ceased to 
pervade every place on this important question ; it collects the 
testimony borne to the disputed books, and shews most distinctly 
the prodigious difference, in this respect, between these sacred 
writings and all spurious books. In one word, to all the objections 
which are attempted to be drawn from its archives, it answers by 
these very archives; and thus it establishes the legitimacy of our 



416 



THE TWO METHODS. 



entire collection on historical bases, far superior to all that the 
literary history of the whole world can offer for any other book. 

407. Still it must be said that, notwithstanding all the eminent 
services this first means of conviction can render to our faith, we 
ought not to use it so much for a foundation as to pave the way 
for it to act as an auxiliary or a defence. Our faith is otherwise 
founded. So in the first times of the gospel, " miracles/' as Calvin 1 
observes, " were never to be separated from the Word, and served 
only for aids and supports of faith, preparing some for it, and 
confirming it in others ; " and in the same way, as our Lord has 
said, that one rising from the dead would not produce faith in those 
who refused to hearken to Moses and the prophets, so also (we 
hasten to declare it) all the proofs furnished by science are incap- 
able of imparting a living and true faith to those who have not 
derived it from the Scriptures, rendered operative by the Holy 
Spirit. 

408. Woe, then, to our teachers and our churches, if they ima- 
gined that, to obtain certainty on the subject of the canon, there is 
no other foundation than the study of the fathers and of history ! 
Our faith requires a support much more certain, and of easier 
access — speaking more to the inner man, and founded on a more 
solid basis. 

Christian experience has attested this to pious men in all ages, 
and this our Eeformers have taken care to express in our most 
accredited confessions of faith. " We know," they have said, 2 
" these books to be canonical, and the infallible rule of our faith, 
not so much by the general agreement of the Church, as by the 
testimony of the Holy Spirit." 

409. In speaking thus, they do not mean to assert that the 
testimony rendered by the Holy Spirit to the Scriptures in the 
heart of every Christian who has been truly converted by them, 
applies itself directly and in an equal measure to every book and 
every chapter and every sentence of which they are composed. 
What they mean to say is only this, that to every truly converted 
Christian the Bible is presented in some way to his soul, with 
evidence, as a miraculous book — as a living and efficacious word, 

1 Commentary on Acts v. 12. 

2 Confession of the Churches of France, art. iv. 



THE METHOD OF FAITH. 



417 



— which "pierces even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit" 
— illumines in a moment the inmost depths of his being, and 
reveals to him the features, hitherto unknown, of his inner man — 
softening, persuading, and subduing it with incomparable power. 
Certainly, never book spake like this book ! " Verily, it told me 
all that ever I did \" "Whence knowest thou me, Lord? Truly, 
Lord, thou art the Son of God ; thou art the King of Israel." 
Henceforth the soul can no longer be under a mistake about it. 
To it this book, in the whole or in part, is certainly from on high. 
The seals of the Almighty are attached to it. But this "witness 
of the Holy Spirit," of which our fathers spoke, and which every 
Christian has more or less acknowledged when he has read his 
Bible with vital efficacy — this witness may at first be heard by 
him only in a single page of the Scriptures ; but this page suf- 
fices to spread over the book which contains it an incomparable 
lustre in his eyes. And as to the divine authenticity of each of 
the parts of which the entire collection is composed, we shall soon 
shew that a Christian reader has legitimate reasons for retaining 
the conviction that the divine origin of these passages in which the 
Holy Spirit has spoken to him, guarantees that of the rest, and 
that, moreover, he can rest in this respect on the general agree- 
ment of the churches, and on the fidelity of God ; because a doc- 
trine of his faith authorises him to recognise in this general agree- 
ment a work of eternal wisdom. He will regard the whole book 
as divine long before each of its parts has been able to convince 
him by itself of its own divinity. Is it not thus that it is suffi- 
cient for a naturalist when he examines by a solar microscope in 
the fin of a living fish a space of the size of a pin's point, and 
beholds there fourteen streams of blood running constantly night 
and day in two opposite directions, and accomplishing night and 
day with astonishing beauty the double wonder of the circulation, 
— is it not, we say, sufficient for him to have had this spectacle 
under his eyes to infer most legitimately that this potent mystery 
of the blood and of life is accomplished likewise in the whole 
body ? 



2 D 



CHAPTER II 



OBJECTIONS TO THE METHOD OF SCIENCE. 

410. This method of science, which can render such valuable 
service to the cause of God as long as it is not allowed to pass the 
limits of its legitimate use, is, nevertheless, exposed to grave objec- 
tions, when persons are disposed to follow it without, at the same 
time, making use of the method of faith. 

Section First, 
its novelty. 

411. An observation which must strike every person who at- 
tends to the habits of the believers of the Old Testament, including 
the apostles and their Master himself, is this, that the procedure 
which seeks for proofs of the canon in sacred criticism, and in the 
monuments of history, was never theirs. They had for the Old 
Testament no other documents to consult than the holy book 
itself, and yet its canon was always received by all. Saints, 
prophets, apostles, and the first Christians, had then evidently 
another method of satisfying themselves than that of science. 
What was it ? We shall mention it presently ; and, besides, this is 
at present not the question. But, meanwhile, let us first recog- 
nise by this important fact, that we ourselves are able to have 
for the New Testament other guarantees than criticism and his- 
tory. If in the present day we had not a history of the canon 
of the New Testament any more than existed formerly for Moses 
and the prophets, ought we, while maintaining, like the apostles, 
the firmest confidence in the canon of the Old Testament, to 



OBJECTIONS TO THE METHOD OF SCIENCE. 



419 



regard ourselves as without a guarantee for the confidence we 
ask for the New ? No, certainly. We must, then, seek elsewhere 
for these guarantees. 

Section Second, 
its inaccessibility. 

412. But, again, what must strike us, in the exclusive use of 
this method of science, is its inaccessibility. In order to follow it, 
philological knowledge and prolonged researches are requisite, 
which, generally, are beyond the reach of unlettered men and of 
pious women ; while the method of faith always remains open for 
every Christian who reads with reverence the Scriptures of his 
God. Such a man carries in his own soul a witness superior to 
all the traditions of history, and all the citations of the fathers. 

Section Third, 
its want of spirituality. 

413. More than this, you will always suffer in the method of 
science, from its absolute want of spirituality. Addressing its 
proofs only to the cold regions of your understanding, and having 
nothing to do with the depths of your moral being, it can pro- 
duce nothing more than a literary conviction, without influence 
over your affections, or control over your will ; while the method 
of faith, by placing you before the God of the Scriptures, and 
shewing Him to you there always like Himself, presents you with 
heartfelt proofs that correspond with the aspirations of your soul 
and lay hold of your inmost convictions. 

Section Fourth, 
its dangers. 

414. Yet, again, another consideration, still more important, is 
this, — that this method of science, when followed in too absolute 
a manner, without being constantly restricted to its legitimate 
use, is full of dangers. In speaking thus, far from us be the 
thought of discouraging its use when conducted with wisdom. 



420 



THE METHOD OF SCIENCE. 



But it is too certain that, by seeking only among the documents 
of history, and the lucubrations of criticism, for the light they 
throw upon the canon, even a sincere piety may be easily en- 
dangered. If we make this pursuit an exclusive study for a length 
of time, — if we are not careful to refresh our souls in the vivifying 
fountains of faith by a devout use of the Scriptures, — if we do 
not thus place ourselves in daily communication with the divine 
facts they present to us, with the power they display, with the 
living God who speaks to us in them — here is our danger. This 
study leads us, by a logical and necessary abstraction, but decep- 
tive and full of peril, to reason upon our Scriptures as we would 
on purely human compositions, and as if we knew nothing of the 
divine dispensations which have given them to us, nor of the 
promises and commands which they address to us. Hence you 
take into consideration only the common accidents of their his- 
tory ; and, thus occupying yourself, you create for yourself a duty, 
which very soon, alas ! becomes a habit, of forgetting that, as a 
Christian, you believe in the intervention of the Holy Spirit in 
the composition of these books. Thus we reason on their charac- 
teristics and their destiny, as if the great facts of redemption had 
never transpired in the world, and as if God had never interfered 
with them. But "all the majesty of the gospel will go to ruin," 
Calvin has said, 1 " when we no longer know that the living 
Saviour speaks from heaven." But Jesus Christ is living. He 
promised His apostles to be with them to the end of the world — 
that is, no doubt, to be with their testimony and their writings, to 
bless them with success. And yet no work of critical science on 
the canon has ever said a single word on this truth, of the presence 
and agency of Jesus Christ in His Church — this great, divine, and 
perpetual fact. The question is discussed, on the contrary, as if 
it related to the Koran or the Zendavesta,— as if Jesus Christ 
was as dead as Mohammed or Confucius, — as if He no longer 
watched over the destinies of His Church, and, consequently, over 
the books which have given it life and perpetuity, — as if, after 
having given His word to the apostles by the Holy Spirit, he took 
no further interest in it, but cast it to the winds, exposed to all 
hazards. 

1 Commentary on the Acts, i., 1-3, 



DANGEES OF THE METHOD OF SCIENCE. 



421 



Hence, what is it that will happen too often in this important 
concern? It is that the faith of many will receive the most 
serious injury ; it is that, as an effect of this continual process of 
abstraction, in which science makes you forget, as a logical duty, 
for a time, that you are a Christian — you will forget it, alas ! far 
too long, and sometimes without ever regaining: tne remembrance. 
Your soul, under this regimen, loses the habits of devotion, and 
acquires those of doubt ; its spiritual sens® becomes palsied ; at 
last, it admits the most disastrous thoughts respecting the Scrip- 
tures of its God. This abstraction, which was at first only a 
method, becomes a permanent state of mind, and you can look at 
the sacred Word only on its human side. You very soon despise 
it under this aspect ; and, no longer remembering the blessed 
emotions it called forth, you forget all the divine interventions 
which you once admired in the history of redemption, from the 
days of Adam, Abel, and Enoch, to those of Noah, of Moses, of 
David, and the prophets, — to those of our Lord and His apostles, 
to those great revivals so often effected in the Church by the 
manifest power of Jesus Christ. It is thus, alas ! that too often 
the soul, devoted to the science of the schools, and emboldening 
itself in this pernicious method, has seen the flood-gates of scepti- 
cism open before it, and the waves have hurried it into the abyss 
of infidelity, to overwhelm it there, perhaps, beyond recovery. In 
the Scriptures, so long ill-used, it can see only fallible documents, 
and a confused heap of errors. At last, it revolts openly against 
them ; and you have seen the most audacious impieties rise up in 
the schools of science, because the man who has lost reverence is 
quite ready for revolt, and God punishes self-created darkness by 
darkness, (Rom. i. 28.) Such was the fall of our first parents, 
who, from the moment they lent an ear to the suggestion of the 
tempter, "Yea, hath God said?" very soon allowed him to say, 
" Certainly, you can resist Him ; certainly, if you do it, you will 
not die ; certainly, ' your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be 
as gods/ " Then the fall was consummated ! 

415. Perhaps our meaning may be better understood by the 
following illustration : — 

Suppose a scribe, a contemporary of Jesus Christ, who for a 
long time had studied His character only in the perfectly human 



422 



THE METHOD OF SCIENCE. 



circumstances of His life of humiliation, His family at Nazareth, 
His artisan's dress, His common trade, His callous hands, His 
popular dialect, His mother advanced in years, 1 His poor sisters, 
and His four brothers who at one time did not believe in Him, 
and wished, with His mother, on one occasion to get hold of His 
person as of a man " beside himself," 2 — this man, no doubt, would 
have experienced for " the Word made flesh " something similar 
to what we here feai>for the written Word on the part of the 
critical science which has for a long time studied it only in its 
human destinies and external features. Let him have followed 
Jesus in His daily walk, when surrounded by twelve fishermen and 
persons of bad reputation — travelling on foot, eating with them, 
worn out with fatigue, laying Himself down to sleep, rising up, 
sighing and weeping, even " with strong crying and tears," " with- 
out form or comeliness, and no beauty that He should be desired," 
(Isa. liii. 2 ;) — would not such a man find it more difficult every 
day to recognise in this despised being the Christ promised ages 
before — the eternal Word, the Creator who weighs the mountains 
in scales, the Searcher of the hearts and reins, the Judge who will 
return on the clouds of heaven, and of whose years there shall be 
no end ? And if this scribe had not taken pains, at the same 
time, to study His incomparable discourses, His divine works, His 
communications with angels, His ineffable deeds of love, would not 
his mind have been readily accessible, first, to all the doubts re- 
specting the Son of man, and then to the most unjust thoughts 
and the most erroneous notions, till he confounded Him with 
ordinary men, and, perhaps, in a short time, with impostors ? 

Now, just such is the danger which threatens, in different de- 
grees, as to the written Word, men who are occupied in studying 
that Word only under the human forms that invest it, and in its 
literary accidents, without taking the precaution to submit, at the 
same time, their inner man to the influences of the Word itself. 
They also, losing their reverence for it, and entertaining erroneous 

1 Fifty-eight years old at the Saviour's death. This event happened in the 
thirty-third or thirty-fourth year of what is called the Christian era, and Jesus 
was then thirty-eight years old; for we know by Matt. ii. 1, that "He was born in 
the days of Herod the king," and by Josephus, that this prince died four years be- 
fore the Christian era. 2 Mark iii. 21, 31, 32. 



DANGERS OF THE METHOD OF SCIENCE. 



423 



notions respecting it, will at first confound it with ordinary books, 
and very soon with forgeries. In proportion as they advance more 
exclusively on the dangerous path, they will have increasing diffi- 
culty to admit that this is the "Word " of God, quick and power- 
ful/' (Heb. iv. 12;) "the lively oracles" of the "living and true 
God/' " sharper than any two-edged sword, dividing asunder the 
joints and marrow;" that incomparable power which created the 
Church and renovates the world. If, then, you behold these per- 
sons end in seeing only discordant and faulty documents, in which 
it is necessary to separate the chaff from the wheat, do not be sur- 
prised, but rather say with us, that if such is too often the result, 
such, certainly, is always the danger of this method when too ex- 
clusively followed. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE ADVANTAGES OF THE METHOD OF FAITH. 

416. The method of faith, on the contrary, by requiring you to 
study profoundly the divine facts recorded in the Word in order 
to find your proofs, far from giving birth to doubts in your pro- 
gress, will every day increase your motives for gratitude, and fur- 
nish fresh subjects of admiration. Instead of taking no notice of 
the constant agency of God in the Church, as you are constrained 
to do by the other method, — instead of dispensing with the pro- 
mises of Christ to His people, and His powerful interventions to 
give them the Bible, and to preserve or to restore it, — instead of 
dispensing with this very simple argument, that the canon of the 
Old Testament never had a history, and yet all the saints before 
Jesus Christ had good reasons for receiving it as divine, — instead 
of putting aside the superhuman effects which these holy books 
have accomplished in the world through every age, rendering them- 
selves a testimony of what they are ; — this method of faith, far from 
regarding as nothing these testimonies of God, contemplates and 
admires them, and, while confirming the canon to you in so many 
ways, at the same time establishes your soul on t( the foundation 
of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief 
corner-stone," (Eph. ii. 20.) This method of faith contemplates 
the incessant and manifestly divine agency which for twenty-three 
centuries made use of the Jewish people, though almost always 
rebellious, to preserve the canon of the Old Testament free from 
all admixtures. He who guarded it for twenty-three centuries, it 
tells you, will not fail to guard the canon of the New Testament 
to the end by the Christian Church. He, of whom it is said, after 



ADVANTAGES OF THE METHOD OF FAITH. 



425 



His ascension to heaven, that He still " laboured with His apostles" 
in their most distant proclamations of the gospel, " working with 
them, and confirming the word with signs following," (Mark 
xvi. 20,) — He is not dead ! No ! it is " He who is alive," (Rev. 
i. 18 ;) and if He has promised to be with them to " the end of the 
world," (Matt, xxviii. 20,) — that is, not with their persons, but no 
doubt with their testimony, and consequently with their books, — 
He has not failed, and will not fail, to keep His promise, by de- 
fending His Church against the gates of hell ; nor will He allow 
those gates to prevail against the sacred books which have given 
it birth, and which sustain its life. How can the elect be saved 
if they do not believe? the method of faith asks; and how can 
they believe if the truth is not preached ? and how can the truth 
be preached if the books which contain it are not given to us ? 
and how can they be given if they are not preserved ? God, then, 
in promising that His Church shall never perish, promises also 
that His word shall never pass away. Sooner should heaven and 
earth pass away ! 

Such are the thoughts and the confident expectations of faith in 
relation to the canon. 

417. In the foregoing lines we have somewhat anticipated what 
must be demonstrated in the sequel, as far as relates to what we 
call the scriptural doctrine of the canon ; but we wish only to 
make it understood that this method of faith, the simplest and 
the shortest for establishing the certainty of the canon, is also 
unquestionably the most beneficial and the surest. 

Yet, before coming to this doctrine, we must state what appears 
to us the true and legitimate use of science in the determination 
of the canon 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE TRUE USE OP SCIENCE IN RELATION TO THE CANON. 

418. The legitimate office of historical and critical science in 
relation to the canon is not so much, as we have said, to lay the 
foundation of our faith, as to pave the way for it, to accom- 
pany, and to defend it. Our faith is otherwise founded — it is 
established on the declarations of God, and on His works. But 
when this faith is attacked in the name of science, it belongs to 
science better informed to reply to science — to undertake the 
examination of facts, and to shew that, properly handled, far from 
shaking our confidence, they serve ultimately to confirm it. 

For example, faith, relying on the divine testimonies, of which 
we shall speak presently, receives the firm assurance that the 
twenty-seven books of the New Testament, of which, at the pre- 
sent day, all the churches all over the world offer one and the 
same collection, must necessarily have been divinely guarded as 
they were divinely given ; for the same Providence, faith asserts, 
which for thirty-three centuries has miraculously preserved the 
Old Testament by means of the Jewish people, cannot have taken 
less care to preserve the books of the New by means of the Chris- 
tian Church. But, in spite of this primary and living conviction, 
it may happen to our faith to hear voices claiming to be those of 
science make this objection, — If it be true that all the churches at 
the present day offer us the same New Testament, composed of 
twenty-seven books, and if it be true that twenty of them were 
never controverted, it is not less true that, before the last fifteen 
hundred years, seven others were, for a longer or shorter time, 
not acknowledged by a certain number of churches, will not this 



THE USE OF SCIENCE. 427 

fact, then, shake your confidence, since it strikes at the very prin- 
ciple on which you found it, that is, the testimony of the churches 
which, according to you, is upheld by God ? 

To this objection of science faith replies, by requesting it to 
apply itself to study the facts afresh with more attention ; and we 
think it has been sufficiently shewn in the First Part of this work 
how, by attesting the freedom, the vigilance, and the holy jealousy 
of the first Christians in the question of the canon, science re- 
tracts, on the contrary, by describing the free and continuous tes- 
timony which all the churches have given at last with admirable 
constancy to the sacred collection of the Scriptures. 
► Such is, then, its legitimate use in the matter of the canon ; a 
use that even faith requests it to give. It is a use of great im- 
portance, but indirect ; real, but secondary and apologetic. Called 
to the useful task of preparing and encouraging our convictions, 
it is not required to lay their foundation ; because it is by argu- 
ments of faith that the vital and profound confidence of a Chris- 
tian soul is established in the sacred collection of our Scriptures. 

419. We shall more firmly grasp this thought by comparing 
the task of historical science with that which other branches of 
human knowledge fulfil, which have been alike employed to attack 
the Scriptures or to defend them. 

Many apologists have undertaken to prove the divine origin of 
revelation by its often wonderful agreement with the different 
discoveries by which mankind have been enriched. For example, 
one hundred and fifty years ago, the knowledge of manuscripts 
being yet in its infancy seemed to raise the most menacing objec- 
tions against the integrity of the New Testament. The various 
readings of the Greek text, we were told, are counted by myriads, 
and must fatally shake your confidence in its integrity. What 
was faith required to do ? To appeal from demi-science to science 
better informed. And so, after an age of Herculean labours, the 
latter has ended by setting in the clearest light the wonderful 
insignificance of the various readings taken as a whole, and by 
confirming, even beyond its first expectation, the preservation of 
our sacred texts ; thus demonstrating that an invisible Power has 
silently watched over our sacred books, and as the last result their 
text is found to be much purer than even pious men dared to hope. 



428 



THE USE OP SCIENCE. 



And it is this which, in their turn, history, astronomy, phil- 
ology, anthropology, archaeology, and other branches of human 
knowledge have clone, and will do, in favour of the Scriptures ; 
though they have all been thought capable of opposing them, yet 
one after the other they have come to render their testimony to 
the Word of God. Are we to infer from this, that these different 
sciences are the human foundation of our faith ? No, doubtless ; 
but only that each of them, properly interrogated, sufficed to repel 
the attacks that were attempted to be made in its name. Well, 
this is precisely what we must say of the science which has been 
named " The History of the Canon." It can be very useful to us, no 
doubt, in resolving difficulties which come from the same quarter ; 
but our faith in the sacred collection has another foundation ; it 
appeals to a doctrine. This is the doctrine we now proceed to 
establish by the divine declarations, and by facts. 



BOOK II 



THE DOCTRINE RELATING TO THE CANON. 



420. The doctrine which concerns the canon of Scripture is this 
— that God himself has made Himself its guarantee, — that His 
almighty providence is engaged for the preservation of this 
sacred deposit, — that He has guarded, now guards, and will guard 
it, till heaven and earth have passed away. In more precise 
terms, it is, that God, by a secret and perpetual agency, watches 
over His written Word, because He watches over His Church ; it 
is, that He has invisibly, but sovereignly, made use, first, of the 
Jewish people, during 3350 years, to make them the sure deposi- 
taries of the sacred oracles of the Old Testament ; and, still later, 
of Christian people — that is to say, of all Christian churches, good 
or bad, to make them, in like manner, through fourteen centuries, 
and to make them to the end, depositaries not less sure of the 
oracles of the New Testament. 

421. This doctrine may be established most firmly, as we think, 
by six classes of proofs. 

(1.) By evident reasons taken from the wisdom of the Most 
High and His faithfulness. 

(2.) By the very simple consideration of what " the God of the 
holy prophets " has not ceased to do, during more than thirty- 
three centuries, in relation to the sacred collection of His Scrip- 
tures. 

(3.) By the infallible testimony borne by the apostles, and the 



130 



THE DOCTRINE RELATING TO THE CANON. 



Son of God himself, to the Old Testament, and to the preservation 
of His canon. 

(4.) By a direct and positive declaration of the Holy Scriptures. 

(5.) By the whole assemblage of the facts of Providence, splen- 
did, incontestable, and numerous — facts extending through ages, 
all of which powerfully attest the sovereign agency of this Divine 
Providence for the preservation of Moses and the prophets. 

(6.) Lastly, by a new assemblage of other facts, not less strik- 
ing and incontestable, all of which attest, with equal force, the 
same continued agency of the Most High for the preservation of 
the New Testament. 



CHAPTEK I. 



THE FIEST CLASS OF PEOOFS TAKEN FEOM THE WISDOM AND 
FAITHFULNESS OF GOD. 

422. This doctrine, we affirm, is already proved, for every one 
who believes in the inspiration of the Scriptures, by the simple 
consideration of the divine wisdom and veracity. 

This is almost a question of the plainest common sense. Only 
suppose that a clever watchmaker, by a wonderful exertion of his 
abilities, prepares and finishes, at a great expense, all the parts 
of a perfect chronometer, which is intended for the use of a 
beloved son in his travels to foreign parts ; shall we not admit, 
as we would an axiom, that, having thus made it, he would not 
intentionally leave it out of doors exposed to all the accidents of 
the weather, or to injuries from passers-by ? And who, then, can 
admit that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ would cause His 
only Son to come down from heaven for His chosen people, with- 
out guaranteeing for them the record of His life and teachings ? 
or that He would have commissioned His apostles to write their 
books by the Holy Spirit, without taking care to preserve in after- 
time so precious a deposit? that He watched over these books 
while they were being written, and ceased to watch over them 
when once they were given to the world ? that He cared no more 
about them when the churches had received them from the hands 
of the apostles ? and that, in consequence, they have been trans- 
mitted from age to age, from country to country, from one gene- 
ration to another, abandoned henceforward, like any common 
book to all the hazards of eighteen centuries ? "Would such ne^li- 
gence be in harmony with the principles of His government ; with 



432 



THE DOCTKINE OF THE CANON. 



the care which He takes of the Church to the end of time ; with 
His declarations of the value of the Scriptures, and the permanent 
certainty of their declarations ; with His denunciations against the 
crime of adding anything to them, or taking anything from them ? 
He numbers the hairs of our head, and would He not number the 
books of His oracles ? He does not allow a sparrow to fall to the 
ground without His permission, and would He allow the Scrip- 
tures to fall from heaven to the ground, which have been given by 
Himself for the universal gathering together of His elect? What 
good to give them divinely inspired, unless He transmit them 
divinely guarded ? Why preserve them from all error, if not pre- 
served afterwards from all dangers ? He who said, " Every word 
of God is pure, .... add thou not unto his words, lest he re- 
prove thee," 1 will He not keep a jealous eye upon it? And if, 
by the mouth of Paul, He pronounced an anathema against any 
who should preach " any other gospel than what His apostles 
preached," 2 would He afterwards permit this condemnation to 
fall on the entire collection of their oracles, by allowing inspired 
writings to be lost from it, or forged writings to be admitted into 
it? This is not possible. And we must all admit that, the 
inspiration of the Scriptures being recognised, our doctrine is 
already proved by the simplest knowledge of the wisdom and 
veracity of God. 

The learned Grotius has developed this thought very ably in the 
third book of his treatise on the truth of the Christian religion. 3 

1 Ps. xii. 6, xviii. 30 ; Prov. xxx. 5, 6. 

2 Gal. i. 8. 

a Lib. iii., cap. 9 : — " Ad haec addo quod, si recipimus curare Deum res hu- 
manas et maxime eas, quae ad honorem cultumque suum pertineant; non potest 
fieri, ut is tantam multitudinem hominum, quibus nihil aliud proposituru erat, 

quam Deum pie colere, passus sit falli mendacibus libris " Cap. ] 5 : — 

" Turn quod de divina providentia attigimus, ad partes praecipuas non minus 
quam ad totos libros pertinet, et non convenire ut siverit Deus tot millia homi- 
num pietatis studiosa et aeternam salutem sincero proposito quaerentia, induci in 
eum errorem, quern vitare omninb non possent." 



BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT SAID TO HAVE BEEN LOST. 433 



Section Eiest. 

books of the old testament which aee said to have been 

LOST. 

423. Nor must it be alleged here that books composed, it is 
said, by prophets of the Old Testament, or by apostles of the New, 
have been lost — " unfortunately lost " — to speak as some theolo- 
gians do in the present day. 1 None have been lost ; and those 
persons who have advanced the contrary on mere suppositions can 
furnish no proof. The Church, for a longer or shorter time, may 
have suspended her judgment on the canonicity of this or that 
scripture ; but not an instance can be cited of any book that has 
been once admitted into the canon that it has been afterwards ex- 
cluded or lost. 2 

424. Such allegations, it is true, have been made as to tne Old 
Testament respecting The Book of the Wars of Jehovah? cited in 
the Pentateuch ; The Booh of Jasher± cited in Joshua and 
Samuel ; also the books of Gad, of Nathan, of Ahijah, of Jeddo, 
of Semahiah, of Heddo, cited in the Chronicles ; 5 and as to the 
New Testament, a pretended Epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans, 
that no one has ever seen, and another pretended Epistle to the 
Corinthians, which also has not been seen. 

425. Bat to speak first of the Old Testament. The Book of the 
Wars of Jehovah never made part of the Holy Scriptures as a dis- 
tinct work. The Jews who came after Moses knew it only by the 
citation of Moses. They have even thought with Aben-Ezra, and 
some rabbis, that he meant only the Book of Numbers. Light- 
foot believed it was a collection of instructions left by Moses to 
serve Joshua as a guide ; 6 others, with Hengstenberg,? that it 
consisted of songs of praises on the wars of Israel ; and others, 
with Calmet, that it was a series of annals written by public 
persons among the Hebrews, to which, perhaps, at different times, 

1 Even the eminent Dr Olshausen, in his valuable treatise on " The Authen- 
ticity of the New Testament," ch. 5, p. 99, of the French translation. 

2 See Prop. 393. 3 Num. xxi. 14. 4 Josh. x. 13; 2 Sam. i. 18. 

5 1 Chron. xxix. 29; 2 Chron. ix. 29, xii. 15, xiii. 22. 

6 Lightfoot, Chronica Temporuni. Opera, i., 37, (Ultrajecti, 1G99.) 

7 Die Authent. des Pentat., ii., 225. 

2 E 



434. 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE CANON. 



the successive titles had been given of The Book of the Wars of 
Jehovah, The Book of Jasher, The Book of Bays. But at all 
events, none of these authors imagined that it was a lost canonical 
book. 

As to The Book of Jasher, (the right, the just,) the Jewish 
Targum explains it of The Book of the Law ; others of The Book 
of the Wars of Jehovah, or of the Book of Judges ; but no Israelite 
ever imagined that it was a sacred book which " had been lost." 

And lastly, as to those of Gad and Nathan — those two prophets 
who had assisted King David in the difficulties of his reign and in 
the administration of holy things 1 — they wrote themselves the 
history of this prince in the sacred book of Samuel, at least from 
the part where 2 Samuel left it at his death. 

Since, then, the scripture itself of the book of Chronicles de- 
clares that the history of David contained in the books of Samuel 
is the work of these two men of God, how can it be maintained 
that their books are lost ? 

It is the same as to the history of King Solomon contained in 
the Book of Kings, and if the Chronicles inform us in like manner 
that the prophets Nathan and Ahijah wrote it,3 as Iddo and 
Shemaiah that of Eehoboam^ and Jeroboam, why should it be 
said that their books are lost ? Do they not make a part of those 
scriptures which were deposited in the temple, as Josephus 5 tells 
us? 

426. Yet it will be said that these books, though they were 
deposited in the temple, have not preserved their distinct indi- 
viduality, and we possess them at this day mixed in one body of 
history as Ezra or some other prophet compiled them. This is 
possible ; but what does it signify ? Even in that case they would 
not be lost, since they would be given to us under the form in 
which the Holy Spirit wished us to have them. And if it be 
true, which I do not affirm, that Ezra received as a prophet an 
order to digest their histories, and to combine them with care in 
one and the same book, called either the Book of Samuel or the 
Book of Kings, it would be absurd as well as incorrect to say that 

1 1 Chron. xxix. 29, xxi. 9 ; 2 Chron. ix. 19, xxix. 25 ; 1 Kings i. 10, 22 ; 2 Sam. 
vii. 2, 4, 17, xxi. 1, 24; xxv. 11, 14, 19. 2 1 Sam. xxiv. 

3 2 Chron. ix. 29. 4 2 Chron. xii. 15. 5 Ant. Jud., v., 11. 



BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT SAID TO HAVE BEEN LOST. 435 

their books were "lost/' and "unfortunately lost." We possess 
them as it was proper we should have them — abridged if you 
please — but, happily, surely and divinely guarded. So much for 
the Old Testament. 

Section Second. 

EOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAjMENT WHICH AEE SAID TO HAVE BEEN 

LOST. 

427. As to the New Testament, the fact will be still more 
simple. First, a letter of Paul to the Laodiceans is alleged to 
have been lost. 

None of the fathers ever saw this pretended epistle, and it 
never was made a question to insert it in the canon. In the time 
of Jerome, about the year 400, one universally rejected, 1 he says, 
had been shewn, and that an impostor had forged it to correspond 
with that passage of Paul to the Colossians, 2 where some have 
wished to find the indication of a letter written by that apostle to 
the Laodiceans. But " this was too clumsy a fraud," says Calvin, 
"that I know not what cheat could dare, under this covert, to 
counterfeit and put forth a letter as written by St Paul to the 
Laodiceans, and, withal, so silly and ridiculous, that we know not 
how anything could be forged more opposite to the spirit of St 
Paul" 3 

But this is not all ; for, besides that no father professes to have 
seen Paul's true epistle, Paul himself never said that he had writ- 
ten one ; and " those persons," Calvin adds, " have doubly deceived 
themselves who have thought that Paul actually wrote to the 
Laodiceans." 

Paul, in that passage, satisfies himself with recommending the 
Colossians to read the epistle coming from Laodicea, (ti)v e'/c Aao- 
8t«eta?,) — that is to say, according to Calvin, " an epistle whicli 
had been sent from Laodicea to Paid, and which he thought it 
desirable to be read by the Colossians or, according to others, 
an epistle written by Paul, which was to be passed from Laodicea 
to Colosse. And what epistle ? Very plainly, without doubt, 

1 In Catal. — u Ab omnibus exploditur." 2 Col. iv. 1G. 

3 Comment, sur Coloss., torn, iv., p. 107. Paris, 1855. 



436 



THE DOCTRINE OP THE CANON*. 



that which he had writen at the same time to the Ephesians, and 
which, not being addressed to " the elders and deacons " of that 
city, was rather, as many think, an encyclical epistle, 

428. But another epistle has been alleged. Many have ima- 
gined, from some equivocal expressions of Paul to the Corinthians, 
that this apostle, 1 antecedently to his two canonical epistles, wrote 
another, which has been " unfortunately lost," or which, at least, 
not having been destined to make a part of the sacred oracles, 
would never have been inserted in the canon. This letter, we 
reply, was never lost, because it never existed. It is true that, in 
this instance, a more modern impostor, availing himself of these 
words of Paul, has attempted to fabricate one, of which we shall 
say nothing, because it has never obtained the least credit, and the 
anachronisms found in it demonstrate the imposture. Besides, no 
father ever said that he had seen this pretended epistle of Paul 
which is said to have been " lost." 

429. The fact is, that the very simple meaning of the apostle's 
words has been misunderstood. 

" I have written to you in this epistle," he says to the Corinth- 
ians, " not to company with fornicators/' 

He does not say, as some translators have incorrectly rendered 
it, "I have written to you in an epistle," but "in the epistle, 
(eypatya bjxlv ev rfj eVto-roX^,)" — that is to say, " in this epistle," 
for this is the form of the definite article used by the Greeks for 
the demonstrative pronoun ; 2 and it is thus all the translators 
have understood the same expression in the four other passages 
where it occurs in the New Testament. 

Eom. xvi. 22 : "I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, (6 ypayjras 
TTjv iiTLcrToXr)v.y' It is, " who wrote the epistle." 

Col. iv. 16: "And when this epistle (rj eVto-roX^, the epistle) 
is read amongst you." 

1 Thess. v. 27 : "I charge you by the Lord that this epistle (rrjv 
iiri(TToXr)v, the epistle) be read unto all the holy brethren." 

2 Thess. iii. 14 : "And if any man obey not our word by this 
epistle, (poet eVto-roX^?, by the epistle,) note that man." 

1 1 Cor. v. 9. 

2 On this subject see Bishop Middleton's admirable work on the use of the 
article in the New Testament. 



BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT SAID TO HAVE BEEN LOST. 437 



" I have written to you (or I write — eypa^a) in this epistle/' 
says the apostle, " not to company with fornicators : yet not alto- 
gether with the fornicators of this world .... for then ye must 
needs go out of the world ; but now I have written (or I write — 
eypayjra) unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called 
a brother/' &c. 

We see that the apostle does not oppose what he writes now to 
what he had written in a preceding letter. He does not oppose 
one tense of the verb to another, not ypdcjico to eypa-yfra, — the aorist 
eypa-^ra is used in the two successive members of the sentence, 
which are by no means adversative, the second being only a 
development of the other, and the aorist of this verb being freely 
used elsewhere in a present sense. 1 

Paul recalls to the Corinthians the occasion of the scandal of 
which he has spoken to them here for the first time. He had just 
exhorted them in this same epistle (eight verses before) not to 
have familiar intercourse with men who, while making a profes- 
sion of Christianity, led immoral lives : — " It is reported com- 
monly that there is such uncleanness among you as is not named 
amongst the Gentiles. And yet ye are puffed up, and have not 
rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken 
away from among you. But I, in the name of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, have judged to deliver such an one to Satan ; . . . . there- 
fore put away from among yourselves that wicked person." Then, 
four verses lower, and without quitting the subject, he adds, " I 
have written in this epistle not to company with fornicators. But 
now I write to you not to keep company, if any man that is called 
a brother/' &c. 

Such, then, is the perfectly natural sense of this passage, without 
there being any question either of a preceding epistle or a " lost 
epistle." 

430. Do we mean to say by this, that Paul, burdened every 
day with continual care for all the churches, did not write, either 
to the brethren or to the churches, other letters besides the four- 
teen epistles in the New Testament during the thirty years of his 
ministry ? Doubtless he did, but " the Lord," Calvin remarks, " has 

i "Ey^w^a is often applied hy the apostle to what he has just written. See 
1 Cor. ix. 15; Philem., 19, 21; 2 Cor. ii. 3; Gal. vi. 11; also 1 John. ii. 11. 



438 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE CANON. 



by His providence consecrated as a perpetual memorial those 
which He knew were necessary for His Church; and, however 
little there may be, this was not a matter of chance, but by the 
wonderful counsel of God the volume of Scripture has been formed 
as we have it." 1 

We see, then, even the words really inspired of the apostles and 
prophets, even those of Jehovah, when He conversed with Moses 
on the mountain or in the desert, those even of the Son of God 
speaking to His most beloved servants in the most important hours 
of His ministry, (Luke xxiv. 27, Matt. xvii. 3,) have not been pre- 
served for us. But is this a loss for the Church ? We think not ; 
since it has not been the will of God to give them to her. It was 
needful that the number of those He reserved for her should be 
reduced to wise proportions. " The world could not have con- 
tained all that it would have been possible to reveal/' (John xxi. 
25 ;) and the Gospels required to be very brief. Not every acorn 
that falls from an oak produces an oak ; but enough remain 
for God's purposes. His holy Word is also a seed ; it has been 
sown in due measure, and has given us all we ought to have. 

431. Yet it must not be imagined that all the discourses or 
writings of an Isaiah or a Daniel, of a Peter or a Paul, during a 
ministry of thirty years like that of the apostles, of sixty years 
like that of Isaiah, or of ninety years like that of Daniel, were 
from morning to evening under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. 
We believe we have established this fact elsewhere by sufficient 
quotations. 2 These prophets and apostles were inspired at certain 
times, determined by God, and for certain objects ; but out of 
these times, and apart from these objects, they were not always 
inspired. God has not guaranteed to us all the words of Paul in 
his disputes with Barnabas, nor all the parchments he left with 
Carpus, (2 Tim. iv. 1 3.) What is guaranteed to us is the Holy 
Scripture — " all scripture divinely inspired," (iraaa ypa(j)rj Qebir- 
vevcrTos.) But beyond this spoken or written theopneustia, 
which in these men of God was like their other charisms, an 
intermittent grace, they were, without doubt, most frequently 
enlightened and directed from on high, as may be the case with 

1 Commentary on Eph. iii. 3. 

2 Theopneustia, chap, iii., sect, i., quest. 12, 13, p. 113, (Scott's trans.) 



BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT SAID TO HAVE BEEN LOST. 439 

simple believers in the present day ; but they no longer spoke as 
" borne away and impelled " by the Holy Spirit , and what they 
uttered, though always deserving the most respectful attention, was 
no longer infallible. 

432. There is, then, nothing lost of the books that God designed 
to give us by His prophets — nothing of the canon of the Scrip- 
tures. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but not one iota of His 
holy Word shall ever pass away, (Matt. v. 1 8.) 

Yet there is another class of proofs for the doctrine of the 
canon, still more simple and manifest — those arising from the 
consideration of what has been done during a long course of ages 
for the Old Testament. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE SECOND CLASS OF PEOOFS FOUNDED ON THE CANON OF THE 
OLD TESTAMENT. 

433. Do you wish for a demonstration, at once the most powerful 
and the simplest, of the sovereign Providence which watches over 
the canon ; and of the profound conviction on this point main- 
tained by all the saints, prophets, and apostles, and by the Son 
of God himself ? Observe what has occurred during thirty- three 
centuries in reference to the sacred oracles of the Old Testa- 
ment. 

We shall make this proof apparent to all Christian readers, by 
simply bringing under their notice three or four incontestable 
facts. 

Section First. 

the astonishing and immovable unanimity of the jews on 
the subject of the canon. 

434. The perfect and constant preservation of the canon for 
thirty- three centuries and a half is a most astonishing fact in the 
history of Israel, not less wonderful than that of the preservation 
of this race of Abraham, which has maintained itself for three 
thousand one hundred and eighty years in the midst of the nations 
as a single family, infusible and indestructible. 

From the time of Moses to our own day, we have beheld among 
this singular people, in spite of all their sins and awful calamities, 
a constant unanimity in acknowledging, without any variation, the 
sacred collection of their Scriptures during its gradual formation, 
and the entire collection since its completion — that is to say, for 



THE TESTIMONY OF JOSEPHUS. 



441 



thirty-three centuries. This canon, which our Bibles divide into 
thirty-nine portions, but which the Jews are accustomed to arrange 
in twenty-two 1 books, as the ancient fathers 2 also did after them 
■ — this canon, we say, was completed 400 years before Jesus Christ, 
and has never ceased to be read since that epoch in all their syna- 
gogues throughout the world as " The Book of God/' The nation 
of the Jews, even before their final catastrophe, was spread over all 
the countries then known. " Moses/' said St James, speaking of 
the Gentiles, " of old time hath in every city them that preach 
him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath-day," (Acts 
xv. 21.) "We see no Grecian cities, and scarcely any cities of the 
barbarians," says also the historian Josephus, " where the rest of 
the Sabbath is not observed through the influence of the Jews." 3 

That all these Israelites received the same canon of the Scrip- 
tures with the most perfect unanimity, is a fact abundantly attested 
by Jews who were contemporaries of the apostles — Philo in Egypt, 
and Josephus in Egypt and Eome. And there is, besides, another 
fact universally admitted, that, a very long time before the apos- 
tolic age, the Old Testament, both in Hebrew and Greek, existed 
in its twenty books, just as we now possess it. 

435. The testimony of Josephus is worthy of being repeated 
here ; for this historian was only thirty years old at the death of 
St Paul. " Nothing,'' he says to Apion,4 " can be better attested 
than the writings authorised among us. In fact, they were never 
subject to any difference of opinion, (/z^re tlvos iv Tot? ypacj)ov- 
fievois evovar]^ Sta^&Wa?,) for only that has been approved among 
us which the prophets, many ages ago taught, as they were, by 
the inspiration of God, (Kara rrjv iiriirvoiav rrjv airo rov Oeou 
fiaOovrcov.) It is, therefore, impossible to see among us, as among 
the Greeks, a vast multitude of books disagreeing, and combating 
one another, (ov fivpidhes ftvfiXlwv elcrl Trap' 7)pZv dav/jLcfrcovcov koX 

1 To correspond with the twenty-two letters of their alphabet, (see Prop. 59,) 
they thus reduce by seventeen our ordinary enumeration of their sacred books, 
by their mode of classifying them. 

2 Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius, John Darnascenus, Jerome, Gregory of Nazian- 
zus, Epiphanius, &c. " Quomodo viginti duo elementa sunt per quae scribimus 
Hebraice omne quod loquiniur," says Jerome, in his Prologus Galcatus, (torn, i., 
p. 318, Bened., Paris, 1693,) " ita viginti duo volumina supputantur." 

3 Contra Apion., ii., 9. 4 Ibid., i., 2. 



4±2 



THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 



/jLaxo/juevwv.) We have only twenty-two, which comprehend all 
that has taken place among us, and which we have just grounds 
for believing, (/cal Si/caia? 7reirt(TTevjuieva.) Five are by Moses. 
The prophets who came after Moses have written, in thirteen 
other books, 1 what has transpired since his death, to the reign 
of Artaxerxes ; . . . . while the four other books 2 contain hymns 
in praise of God, and precepts for the regulation of manners. 
Moreover, all that has happened since Artaxerxes to our own time, 
has been written ; but, because there has not been an exact suc- 
cession of prophets, these books have not been thought worthy of 
the same faith as those that preceded them, (ttI(tt6co<; Be ovx 
6/JLoias rj^lcorai, rah irpb eavrwv,) 

" But it is sufficiently manifest by these facts to what extent 
we have given our faith to our own Scriptures (ttw? fffieh to?? 
tSlois <ypd/uLfia(T(< ireiria-TevKafiev ;) for, although so many centuries 
have already passed away, no person has ever dared to add, or to 
take away, or transpose anything, (pyre irpoadelvai t/? ovhev, ovre 
afyeXelv avrcov, ovre fJueraOetvaL reroX/Jbrj/cev ;) and it has been as 
an innate thought for all the Jews, {itclgi <yap avjubcpvTov,) from 
the first generation, or, from their very birth, (eWvs etc rrj? m-parr)? 
<yeveo-eco$,) to call them the doctrines of God, (Oeov Soyfiara,) to 
abide by them, and, if necessary, to die cheerfully for them, (jcal 
nrepl avrcov, el Seot, Qviqaiceiv ^Sew?.)" 

This testimony clearly shews that, in the time of Josephus, the 
whole Bible was composed of the same twenty-two books as for 
the modern Jews, or the thirty-nine books for ourselves ; and 
that, to whatever set they belonged, and wherever they erred, the 
Jews never betrayed the least disagreement respecting their sacred 
canon ; that the most familiar, or the most historical books of 
the Bible — Ruth, Esther, or Nehemiah, as well as the Psalms of 
David, or the visions of Isaiah were, in their eyes, alike written 
by the succession of the prophets, (8ia to <yevea6ai rrjv twv irpo- 
(f>r]T(ov BiaSoxfiv,) and under the inspiration which comes from 
God, (Kara rrjv eirvrrvoiav rrjv airo rov Oeov,) and were alike 

1 Namely — (1.) Joshua; (2.) Judges, with Ruth; (3.) Samuel; (4.) Kings; 
(5.) Chronicles; (6.) Ezra and Nehemiah; (7.) Esther; (8.) Job; (9.) Isaiah; 
(10.) Jeremiah and his Lamentations; (11.) Ezekiel; (12.) Daniel; (13.) The 
Twelve Minor Prophets. 

2 Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs. 



THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES. 



443 



called the doctrines of God, (Geov Boy/nara ;) that, lastly, this 
common conviction was through all ages so inherent in the very- 
existence of the Israelitish nation, that it might be said to be born 
with them from their first generation, (av/jLcfrvTov,) and that they 
were always ready to die rather than renounce it. 

And what Josephus said 1800 years ago, may be asserted 
equally of the modern Jews, from the siege of Jerusalem by Titus 
to our own days. 

Section Second, 
the testimony of the apostles to the canon. 

436. Yet another divine fact still more worthy of all our at- 
tention is, that the apostles shared in this full and perfect con- 
fidence of the Jewish people in reference to the canon. These 
men of God, commissioned by the Holy Spirit to announce His 
eternal truth to the whole world, to bind and loose, to discern 
spirits, and to become themselves, as apostles and prophets, " the 
twelve foundations of His universal Church," — these men of God 
never ceased to regard the twenty-two books of the Old Testament 
as constituting a unique whole — an entire whole, sacred and 
perfect, which they denominated the Scripture, the Word of God, 
the Oracles of God, and of which they said, " All Scripture is in- 
spired by God ; " " all the prophets who wrote it had in them the 
spirit of Christ ; " " all the Old Testament is a written prophecy," 
(7rpo<f)r)T€La ypacf>rj<; ;) "God hath spoken by the mouth of all His 
holy prophets since the world began." 

This fact, so highly important, comes then to sanction, in its 
turn, the unanimous and invariable testimony which the Jews 
have always borne to their canon ; and we must, therefore, soon 
apply ourselves to examine what was the real foundation of this 
absolute confidence of the apostles and the Israelitish nation in 
the perfect integrity of the Old Testament. But before we come 
to that, there is another still more significant fact, which demands 
our most devout attention, since it tends to impress, more than 
any other, on the canon of the scriptures of the Old Testament a 
divine character of infallibility. 



U4* 



THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 



Section Thied. 
the testimony of jesus christ. 

437. The incomparable fact to which we now appeal, is the be- 
lief of our Redeemer himself respecting the Scriptures ; it is the 
judgment of Emmanuel, " the God of the holy prophets ; " it is 
His whole conduct in reference to the canon. By Him its integ- 
rity or legitimacy was never questioned ; by Him the least hesita- 
tion was never manifested as to the Divine authenticity of any of 
the twenty- two books of which it consisted ; He cited all, or 
nearly all, with His own lips. "Who shall discern the spirits of 
the prophets, if not He whose eternal Spirit animated them all ? 1 
Who shall better inform us whether such a book is of God, or 
whether it is of man \ " The chief Shepherd of the sheep, by the 
blood of the everlasting covenant/' came in His own person to 
dwell among men, and who shall better distinguish than He the 
voice of His own messengers from that of strangers and robbers ? 2 

He was heard Himself preaching these scriptures ; He was 
seen taking from the hands of the Jews in their synagogues the 
sacred roll which they u delivered to Him/' 3 and unfolding it 
before all, He cried, " In the volume of the book it is written of 
me ! " He was heard crying at the feast, " Search the Scriptures ; 
for in them ye think ye have eternal life/' 4 He was even seen 
to expound them from one end to the other, " beginning at Moses 
and all the prophets, He expounded to them in all the scriptures the 
things concerning Himself." 5 Did He ever suppose the least altera- 
tion on the part of the Jews ? Never. He reproached them with 
having continually resisted this divine book, but never with having 
altered it. God suffered them to commit all crimes excepting this. 
They rejected Jehovah — they committed abominations with their 
infamous gods, and made their children pass through the fire ; but 
they never made themselves chargeable with the much easier crime 
of altering the Scriptures, and foisting in spurious books. 

Christ's whole career as the Son of man, attests that no human 
teacher ever held the Sacred Volume in greater reverence. Which- 

1 1 Pet. i. 11. 2 John x. 5, 8. 3 Luke iv. 17, 21. 

4 John v. 39. 5 Luke xxiv. 27, 44. 



THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS CHRIST. 



445 



ever of the sacred books He cites, it is for Hinr always God who 
speaks ; this scripture is the rule of His life. It is by the whole 
of this book that He regulates His holy humanity, and that He 
wishes us to submit our own, in order to be saved. The least 
word of this book possesses in His eyes an authority of greater 
permanence than the heavens and the earth. When He wishes to 
convince the Sadducees and Pharisees, at one time He proves the 
resurrection by a single word from Exodus j 1 at another, the true 
doctrine of marriage by a single word from Genesis ; 2 at another, 
His own divinity by a single word from the 110th Psalm, or by 
another word from the 82d Psalm ; and yet, before pronouncing 
this word, He interrupts Himself to exclaim, " And the scripture 
cannot be broken, {jcal ov SvvaroL rj ypa^r) Xi^z/at.)" 3 At the 
commencement of His ministry, He knew all these scriptures 
without having studied them. 4 In His conflict with Satan He 
combats him by citing them three times with this simple and 
powerful formula — " It is written." When He closes His ministry 
on the cross, He quotes the twenty-second psalm, and when He 
recommences it for some days after His resurrection, He still 
expounds the series of sacred books, " beginning at Moses, 5 and 
continuing through all the prophets and the psalms." In a word, 
He has cited as from God, Genesis, 6 Exodus, 7 Leviticus, 8 Numbers, 9 
Deuteronomy, 10 the Book of Samuel, 11 of Kings, 12 of Jonah, 13 
and of Daniel. 11 He has cited Isaiah, 15 Hosea, 16 Jeremiah. 1 ? 
He has cited as from God, 18 Psalms viii., xxi., xxv., xxxi., xli., 

I Exod. iii. 6 ; Matt. xxii. 32. 2 Matt. xix. 4 ; Gen. i. 27. 
3 Matt. xx. 43 ; John x. 27, 35. 4 John vii. 15. 

5 Luke xxiv. 27. 6 Matt. xix. 4 ; Mark x. 6. 

7 Matt. xxii. 32, 37, v. 21, 27, 38, xv. 4; Mark vii 10, xii. 26. 

8 Matt. v. 22, 43, xxii. 39 ; Mark xii. 31 ; John xiii. 34. 

9 Matt. v. 33; John iii. 14 ; Matt. xii. 5. 

10 Mark xii. 29 ; Luke x. 7, 27 ; John viii. 5, 7. 

II Matt. xii. 3; Mark ii. 25; Luke vi. 24; John xii. 34. 

12 Matt. xii. 42; Luke xi. 31, iv. 25, 26, 27, ix. 54. 

13 Matt. xii. 40 ; Luke xi. 32. 

14 Matt. xxiv. 15; Mark xiii. 14; Luke xxi. 20, 22. 

15 Matt, xiii 14, xv. 7, 8, 30, xi. 5, xxi. 13; John xii. 40; Mark iv. 12, vii. 0, 
xi. 17; Luke viii. 10, iv. 12, xix. 46. 18 Matt. ix. 13, xii. 7; Luke xix. 46. 

17 Matt. xxi. 13; Mark xi. 17; Luke xix. 46. 

18 Matt. iv. 6, xv. 34, xxi. 16, xxii. 44 ; John xv. 25, 35, x. 34, xix. 24, 28, xiii. IS ; 
Luke xxii. 21, xxiii. 46, iv. 10, x. 17, xix. 38; Mark iv. 12, vii. 6, xv. 17. 



446 THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

lxix., lxxviii., Ixxxii., xci., ex., and cxviii., and cites them, saying, 
" Have ye not read these words of David, saying by the Spirit ? " 
" Have ye not read what God said by the mouth of David ? " 

We see, then, what was our Master's firm belief respecting the 
canon of the Old Testament. We have before us His science on 
this question. We have His sacred criticism: it involved the 
reception of all the sacred books of the Jews ; it called them all 
in detail, and as a collection, the law ; 1 it declared that heaven 
and earth should pass away, but not one jot or tittle of the law 
should pass till all be fulfilled.2 

Section Fourth, 
first inference relative to the old testament. 

438. Christians ! what do you infer from this, except to receive 
it as your Master received it? We must either rank ourselves 
among His scholars, or cease to bear His name; and when a 
student of the Scriptures examines in the schools of theology 
whether he should acknowledge as canonical such or such a book 
of this holy law, which his Master acknowledged, he will act a 
more logical, and, at the same time, more honourable, part, to 
examine whether he will acknowledge Jesus Christ, and continue 
to call himself a Christian. 

439. Supported, then, by this Divine authority, we assert not 
only that the ancient people of the Jews, when they received so 
unanimously their sacred collection of twenty books, were in the 
right, since Christ himself — God manifest in the flesh — received 
them all as canonical, but further, that this astonishing and per- 
petual unanimity of the Jewish people must have had a Divine 
cause, and was founded on the power as well as on the promise 
and faithfulness of God. "We know what we worship," said 
Jesus Christ, speaking of the Jews, " and they are they who gave 
us the Scriptures ; for salvation is of the Jews," (John iv. 22 ;) 
and " unto them were committed the oracles of God," (Rom. iii. 2.) 
In worshipping God according to the whole canon of their Scrip- 
tures, the Jews therefore "knew what they worshipped, and salva- 
tion for the world was of them." 

1 John x. 34, xii. 34 ; Rom. iii. 14. 2 Luke xvi. 1 7 ; Matt. v. 18 ; Luke xxi. 



OEIGIN OF THE UNANIMITY OF THE JEWS. 



447 



440. And now, whence could come this marvellous agreement 
of a whole people, in other respects almost always rebellious, to 
receive and maintain without the slightest variation one sole 
canon of Scripture, a unanimous agreement through 3300 years ? 
Certainly it could come only from God. But at the same time, 
under this Divine agency, there must have been a common thought, 
an intelligent principle in reference to the canon, among this people, 
on which was founded the certainty of all classes — of the little 
and the great, of the wise and the simple, of the great Sanhedrim 
that solemnly reported to their king the prophecy of Micah, 1 as 
well as that of the humblest synagogue, — the certainty of the 
poorest Jews of the dispersion at Berea " searching the Scriptures 
daily (to kcl6 > rjfiepav avcucplvovres Ta? ypcMpds) " to see whether 
Paul's discourses were conformable to them, 2 as well as that of 
the pious Israelitish mother, married to a Greek in Asia Minor, 
but aided herself by her venerable mother, who brought up her 
little son (dirb (3pe<f>ov<;) in the knowledge of the true God, by 
making him learn the Holy Scriptures every day, (2 Tim. iii. 15.) 

But this common thought of certainty among all this people, 
what could it be ? We shall soon prove that it was a doctrine ; 
and that the minds of the Israelitish nation rested, by its means, 
on the character of God, on His promises, and His faithful- 
ness. 

441. And let it be carefully observed, that this could not be a 
knowledge of the history of the canon, such as we have been able 
to present for the New Testament in the First Part of the present 
work. By no means. The canon of the Old Testament had no 
history. The Hebrews, in the time of Jesus Christ, possessed no 
literary monuments besides those which the Holy Scripture itself 
can still offer to the men of our own time. Josephus, in his 
History of the Jews, indicates none. It was, therefore, im- 
possible for any one to demonstrate the authenticity of the sacred 
books by such documents as modern criticism employs for the 
New Testament. The holy books were of too high antiquity to 
present a contemporaneous literature, or even a literature of many 
ages after them. The writings of the ancient Greeks, cited by 
Josephus, were too recent to have anything to say of weight ; 

1 Matt. ii. G. 2 Acts xvii. IT. 



448 



THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 



while those of the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Persians had no re- 
ligious relation to the sacred literature of the Hebrews. There 
was no document by which to judge the Old Testament but the 
Old Testament itself. But who could tell, in the time of Josephus 
and the apostles, any more than at the present day, by what 
human means Moses provided for the guardianship of his books 
after they had been placed by the Levites " in the side of the ark 
of the covenant?" (Deut. xxxi. 25.) By means of the priests, 
Josephus seems to believe but who can affirm it ? What prophet 
wrote the last particulars in the Pentateuch ; the death of Moses ; 
his burial ; the long mourning that followed ; and the ignorance, 
which has never been removed, respecting his sepulchre ; and 
the declaration, " that there arose not a prophet since in Israel 
like unto Moses?" (Deut. xxxiv. 10.) Joshua, do you say? It 
may be so ; but who can affirm it ? Again, what prophet was the 
writer of the sacred book of Job ? Job himself ? Moses ? Elihu ? 
Solomon? Isaiah? Ezekiel? Esra? Each of them has been 
named, and may have been, the author ; but who can affirm it ? 
And who wrote the book of Joshua? and of Judges? and of 
Ruth ? Daniel has been named. 2 This also may be true ; but 
who can affirm it? And the books of Samuel, of Kings, of 
Chronicles, of Esther, of Jonah ? Eor Esther, some have named 
Mordecai, others Nehemiah, others Malachi. It has been thought 
that the history of Solomon and of his successors may have been 
the work of Nathan, of Ahijah, of Shemaiah, or of Iddo. 3 Esra, 
especially, has been often spoken of for the books of Kings and 
Chronicles. But still, who can affirm it ? And as to the Psalms 
— if we know that, at least, 71 were by David, (without speak- 
ing of the 2d and 95th ;) if we know that there is one by Moses, 
one by Heman, one by Ethan, twelve by Asaph, and eleven by 
the sons of Korah, who shall teach us the author of the anony- 
mous psalms. In a word, no one can tell what prophets put the 
last hand to the twenty books of the Old Testament, to leave 
them to us in that state in which the Church of God has possessed 
them for twenty-three centuries. Esra has been often mentioned ; 

1 Contra Apion., lib. i., cap. ii. 

2 Particularly on account of 1 Chron. xxix. 29, and Acts. iii. 24. 
:j 2 Chron. ix. 29, xii. 15, xiii. 22. 



0K1GIN OF THE UNANIMITY OF THE JEWS. 449 

and even the rabbins, as well as Jerome, 1 have made this prophet 
and Malachi to be one and the same person. But who can found 
anything on these surmises ? 

And if you do not know the authors of all these scriptures, it 
ought to satisfy you entirely to be able to say, with Jesus Christ, 
that they were the prophets? Much less do you know how they 
passed from the hands of the authors into those of the nation. 
You are equally ignorant what interval, more or less, elapsed 
between the year of their first appearance in the Jewish Church, 
and that of the universal assent, which they afterwards obtained. 
Was there not imder the Old Testament, for many of these 
writings, what was seen, at a later period, under the New, for 
the smaller late epistles of James and Jucle, Peter and John 
— I mean a time, longer or shorter, of examination, the days 
of homologoumena and antilegomena, until the final adhesion 
of the whole nation, given under the care and sanction of God, 
given freely, and without resumption ? 

All these elements of a science of the canon were then wanting 
to the Church of the Old Testament. But they did not even ask 
for them ; they knew better than all that. They firmly believed 
in the canonicity of all these books, because their security was 
established on something totally different from the decisions of 
human schools. They founded it on the declarations of God, on 
His character, and on His acts. They believed that these scrip- 
tures were all guarded by God, because they had been given by 
God. One of these miraculous facts served as a guarantee for the 
other ; and they all believed that the Lord had pledged Himself 
to preserve them, since He had given them for the revelation of 
His glory, and the gathering together of His elect. In a word, 
if you had lived as a believer in the days of Jesus Christ, you 
must have believed, like all the Jews, and like your Master him- 
self, in the canon of the Scriptures. And if you had doubted of 
this canon, Jesus would have said to you, as He did to the 
Sadducees — u Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the 
Scriptures, neither the power of God?" (Mark xii. 24) 

1 Fraefat ad Malach. - See Theopneustia, ch. ii., sect. 3. 

2 F 



450 



THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



Section Fifth, 
the second inference, relating to the new testament. 

442. Prom these facts and primary inferences, which have just 
presented themselves to us with so much evidence in relation to 
the Old Testament, the most complete, legitimate, and necessary- 
analogy will soon lead us to acknowledge that it must be ab- 
solutely thus with the New Testament ; and that what constitutes, 
as to its canon, the true security of a Christian, when he has per- 
ceived, by his own experience, the Divine power of the Scrip- 
tures, will be much more faith than science ; more a doctrine 
than a history ; much more the faithfulness of God than quota- 
tions from the Fathers, and all the documents of Christian an- 
tiquity. 

443. And how, in fact, should it be otherwise? If the Old 
Testament has been preserved by God for thirty-four centuries by 
the continual agency of an invisible Providence, to be transmitted 
in its integrity from generation to generation by the nation which 
was divinely charged with this deposit, can we admit that the 
New Testament has had less care taken of it ? Would it be less 
precious in the eyes of its Author ? and is it not much more so, if 
possible? Has not God moved heaven and earth to give it to 
us ? Has He not destined it to transmit to us the very words of 
His only Son? Were "the apostles and prophets/' who were 
commissioned to write it, inferior to those of the Old ? On the 
contrary, they were far superior. Their ministry was more illus- 
trious and miraculous than that of Isaiah and Elisha ; they were 
" more than prophets," Jesus Christ tells us ; and the God of the 
second Pentecost did greater things than the God of the first. In 
a word, the Scripture, whenever it institutes any comparison be- 
tween the writers of the two Testaments, only does it to put the 
latter above the former ; to exalt their charisms and their works ; 
and asserts that, even in the kingdom of heaven, they will be 
placed on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel, 
(Matt. xix. 28.) 

444. If, then, it has been clearly proved that God has never 
ceased, by the secret but sovereign agency of His Providence, to 



THE AKGUMENT APPLIED TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 451 

make invariably faithful on this point the people who, above 
all others, were the most unruly and inconstant — we ask, is it 
possible to believe that this same God has not done as much for 
His New Testament, which He willed to do for so many ages, and 
still continues at the present day to do, for the Old ? This can- 
not be admitted. Who can suppose that He has guarded the 
books of Moses and the prophets for fifteen hundred years an- 
terior to the coming of Jesus Christ, and then for nineteen 
centuries more down to our own day, and, having prosecuted 
this amazing work for one of the Testaments, has not done it for 
the other, — that He has changed His method for the latter, which 
continues the former — for the latter, still more precious, which 
explains, completes, and consummates the first. Again, we say, 
this is impossible. 

445. And let no one say that this difference exists between the 
two covenants and their respective canons — that in the one God 
has proceeded by miraculous methods, but employs in the other 
agents more spontaneous and means more natural. It is by no 
means so. His government, which is carried on by prodigies only 
at the epochs of new revelations, has, on the contrary, shewn itself 
more miraculous in the latter than in the ancient ; for " if the 
ministration of the law was glorious, the ministration of the 
Spirit," St Paul says, " is much more glorious," (2 Cor. iii. 8, 9 ;) 
and the second scriptures were brought into the world by dispen- 
sations more excellent and more striking than the first. If in 
those " God at sundry times and in divers manners spake by the 
prophets, he has spoken to us in these last days by his Son, the 
brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, who 
upholds all things by the word of his power," (Heb. L 1-3.) And 
these scriptures, given by the Son and by those who had heard 
Him, God giving them witness by the distribution of His Spirit 
according to His will — were these scriptures to be less protected 
than the others ? Far from us be such a thought ! In order to 
give them to us, the "Word was made flesh." He quitted the 
glory He had with the Father before the world was, and when 
He humbled Himself to take the form of the Son of man, the 
heavenly host rendered Him adoration by their songs. Angels 
were seen to ascend and descend upon Him ; several times the 



452 



THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



voice of the Father was heard pointing Him out to the world ; the 
tomb could not hold Him ; and His apostles, after having con- 
versed with Him forty days, saw Him reascend to heaven. Thus 
"the great mystery of godliness, God himself manifested in the 
flesh, was seen of angels, believed on in the world, and received 
up into glory." From that time He appeared very often to His 
apostles, in the course of the sixty years of their ministry, to 
assist them — at Damascus, at Csesarea, at Jerusalem, at Corinth, 
and at Patmos. 1 When He commissioned them to "teach all 
nations," He promised to be with them — that is, with their testi- 
mony and their scriptures — even to the end of the world. 2 The 
Holy Spirit also rested on each of them as with tongues of fire. 
They were even endowed with an unheard-of privilege, which never 
belonged to the most illustrious of the ancient prophets ; they, and 
they alone, were able, during a ministry of from thirty to fifty 
years, to cause, by the imposition of their hands, miraculous 
charisms to descend on the believers who immediately followed 
them, and who were the first to transmit to us the scriptures of 
the New Testament^ (Acts viii. 17, 19 ; Gal. iii. 2.) 

446. Let any one say, after all this, whether it can be admitted 
that the collection of these books, given with such prodigies, was 
not guarded by God from age to age, when it has been clearly 
proved that the Old Testament had never ceased to be so ; let any 
one say whether it can be admitted that God watched miraculously 
over the Jews of the dispersion, to maintain their testimony un- 
alterable for ever, and that He did not watch with the same 
jealousy over the Christian churches, to make them not less faith- 
ful guardians of a deposit more miraculous in its origin, and 
more indispensable in its integrity ; — this cannot be allowed. 

We must repeat it, then, the divine preservation of the Old 
Testament being properly established, it becomes a certain pledge 
of that of the New. For if it is certain that the Old Testament 
was guarded by power from on high during thirty-three centuries, 
in order that its canon might remain for ever free from all re- 

1 Acts vii. 56, ix. 5, 10, 17, 34, 48, xviii. 9, 10, xxii. 18, 21, xxiii. 11, xxvi. 15, 16 ; 
2 Cor. xii. 8, 9 ; Eev. i. 13. 2 Matt, xxviii. 18-20. 

3 To this fact the passages relate contained in Acts xix. 2 and John vii. 39. See 
on this subject Calvin's judicious reflections in his commentary. 



THE ARGUMENT APPLIED TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 453 

trenchment and from all mixture, it must be equally evident to us 
that the canon of the New can never have ceased to be the object 
of a vigilance not less admirable and faithful. 

447. Therefore, though you knew nothing more respecting the 
origin of the New Testament or its history than you knew 
respecting that of the Old, — though, for example, the ecclesiastical 
history of Eusebius of Csesarea, which constitutes at least three- 
fourths of our knowledge upon the canon, had been entirely lost ; 
though we had nothing left of the three or four fathers of the 
apostolic age, nothing of Origen, nothing of Jerome ; and though, 
finally, we knew not who were the authors of the greater part of 
the scriptures of the New Testament, as we know not those who 
wrote at least one-half of the Old ; — yet we should have the same 
reasons of certainty respecting its canon which the Jews, and the 
apostles, and the Son of God had for the books of Moses, the 
Prophets, and the Psalms. In this case, too, our confidence ought 
to be founded entirely, like theirs, on the principles of faith. 

448. The connexion of the two doctrines of the inspiration of 
the Scriptures by the Holy Spirit, and their miraculous preserva- 
tion by the secret providence of the same Spirit, is so logically 
necessary, that a very significant twofold experiment can be made 
upon it at all times. 

In the first place, we have never seen the Church disquiet her- 
self about the canon in her days of living piety, when, feeling the 
divine power of the Scriptures, she could have no doubt of their 
inspiration. And, on the other hand, it has always been in her 
days of languor and death, when not familiar with the Scriptures, 
that she no longer felt their divine inspiration, that she began to 
entertain doubts about the canon. So true it is that the integrity 
of this sacred volume of the Scriptures is a natural and necessary 
consequence for a Christian persuaded of their inspiration. The 
reading of this or the other portion of this collection has convinced 
him of the Divine power concealed in it ; for, in converting him, 
it has made him feel even to the joints and marrow the keenness 
of this two-edged sword. "Verily," he has said, like Jacob at 
Bethel, " Jehovah is here ! " How venerable is this book ! " This 
is the house of God ; this is the gate of heaven ! " Henceforward 
he has felt the powerful impression that such a book cannot have 



454 THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

been given by God for His elect without being likewise preserved 
by God for them, and that if it was to be preserved from error 
when it was written, it must also be preserved from error when 
transmitted. Such is the thought of their faith ; while rationalism, 
a stranger to the power of the Scriptures, will always regard the 
history of their destinies as uncertain. We may therefore com- 
prehend how, during its reign, the Church, passing through years 
of languor and disease, will suffer disquietude respecting the 
authenticity, authority, and integrity of her too long neglected 
Scriptures, and will necessarily see in her religious literature the 
triple question reappear of apologetics, inspiration, and the canon. 
But, on the contrary, the Bible, as long as it is received by 
churches in a state of vigorous life, is itself the best of apologetics, 
the most eloquent witness of its own inspiration, and the surest 
guarantee of its own canon. 

449. Another consideration will make us still better comprehend 
the force and importance of this conclusion of faith for the Chris- 
tian readers of the New Testament. It is this — that the results of 
science, even for the New Testament, though very sufficient to 
defend the canon against its adversaries, are very inferior to what 
they would have been had God destined them to establish it ; for 
in that case they must have presented no uncertainty — no link 
wanting on any point ; while it is not so at all. The historical 
and literary monuments which form all the treasure of this science 
are, after all, imperfect. They suffice, without doubt, to give us 
many guarantees for the authenticity of our twenty-seven sacred 
books, which no literature possesses for the ancient books that are 
the objects of its study; but these guarantees, so powerful for 
the homologoumena, do not reach, for the five antilegomena, the 
measure which faith can demand ; for an intimate and profound 
certainty is required, which science alone, however respectable it 
may be in its proper sphere, cannot furnish. Many links, more- 
over, are wanting in the chain of facts to which it appeals, perhaps 
even some of the first on which all the rest should depend. It 
produces, no doubt, very important testimonies from the primitive 
fathers ; but those fathers and their genuine writings are very 
few. It shews us the apostles watching for thirty years, some for 



THE INSUFFICIENCY OF SCIENCE. 



455 



sixty years, over the innumerable churches founded by them, and 
transmitting to them these sacred books ; but they do not say to 
■what hands they intrusted them, nor what pledges they took that 
their transmission should be faithfully effected from one church 
to another. It shews us Peter, at the close of his life, recom- 
mending as the scriptures of God " all the epistles of Paul ; " but 
this testimony teaches us nothing directly respecting the writings 
of Jude, of John, of James, and of Peter himself. It tells us of 
the original manuscripts which many churches in the time of 
Tertullian, in the year 207, 1 still preserved of the epistles of Paul 
to Eome, Corinth, Philippi, Thessalonica, and Ephesus ; but it 
does not apprise us of analogous facts respecting the other writings 
of the New Testament. It knows nothing precisely of the way in 
which the churches adopted the sacred books according as they 
made their appearance. It attests superabundantly, we allow, 
that twenty of these books were from the first always accepted 
everywhere without the least contradiction, and this fact is cer- 
tainly one of incomparable lustre ; but it knows nothing of the 
mental process by which all hesitation gradually ceased about the 
seven other books throughout all Christendom. It shews us all 
the churches in the world constantly agreed for 1500 years in 
presenting us with one and the same canon of twenty-seven 
books ; but it cannot acquaint us with all that was said before 
these fifteen centuries among those that hesitated. It tells us, 
indeed, that John was the Ezra of the New Testament, that is to 
say, that he collected the different books, and sanctioned their 
canonisation ; but this saying in reference to the apostle, as well 
as that about Ezra, is only a tradition, which cannot satisfy our 
faith. Lastly, from these hasty glimpses, which we could mul- 
tiply, we infer again that if there is no history for the canon of 
the Old Testament, there exists only an incomplete history for 
some of the books of the New Testament, and that, consequently, 
while congratulating ourselves on these important and numerous 
facts collected by science for the refutation of our opponents, our 
Christian confidence requires to be settled on a still more solid 

1 Tertull. De Praescript. Haercticor., xxxvi. See Propp. 160, 247. 



456 



THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



basis, and on deeper principles of faith, whether as to the Old 
Testament or even the New. 

We pass on, then, to a third class of proofs — the clear declara- 
tion of Holy Scripture attesting that the divine conservation of 
the Old Testament has been confided to the Jewish people, in 
order that they might be for ever its faithful depositaries. 



CHAPTER III. 



THIRD CLASS OF PEOOFS TAKEN FROM THE DECLARATIONS OF 

SCRIPTURE. 

450 What God in His wisdom, and in harmony with His other 
works, needed to do for the constant and perfect preservation of 
the sacred oracles confided to His people — what all the faithful 
under the old covenant firmly believed He had done — St Paul 
declares that He has actually done, and informs us by what means. 
It was, he says, by means of the Jews ; God himself having con- 
fided to them for this end, under the invisible government of His 
providence, the sacred deposit of the Scriptures. It was thus 
that, by a sovereign and mysterious decree, He constituted this 
inconstant and wayward people the sure and faithful depositary 
of His Holy Word. " Unto them were committed the oracles of 
God, (iirLCTTevOncrav ra \6yia rod Seov.) " 

In consequence of this appointment, this people, notwithstand- 
ing all their unfaithfulness and misfortunes, carry everywhere 
with them for thirty-three centuries the AVord of the Old Testa- 
ment inviolate and complete, to the ends of the earth. They 
always present it to the nations of the world, throughout all ages, 
in the furthest exiles to which their sins have dispersed them, be 
it the centre of Africa or in the cities of China. They con- 
tinue to read it every Sabbath in all their synagogues, and, to pre- 
serve it always free from any admixture, they count the books, 
the chapters, the verses, and even the letters, and by this jealous 
and unceasing vicnlance from age to age, and in the time even of 
their severest chastisements, they never cease to give to the 
whole world this unalterable Scripture, every page of which con- 
demns them ! 



458 



THE DOCTRINE OP THE CANON. 



This important declaration is found at the beginning of the 
third chapter of the Epistle to the Romans — " What advantage, 
then, hath the Jew?" The apostle supposes an objector to say, 
" What is his privilege, since, according to you, all men, Jews as 
well as Greeks, are under the condemnation of the law?" " This 
privilege is muck every way, (tto\v, tcara irdvTa rpoirov,)" he 
replies, "but chiefly in this, (jrpcoTov pev,) that they were Mis- 
trusted with the oracles of God. (on eTno-revOrjo-av ra \6yia tov 
Oeov.y 

Their privilege, according to the apostle, is, then, not only that 
of possessing the Scriptures, which are the very oracles of God 
our Saviour, but especially that of having received them as a 
deposit under the guardianship of God, and thus being divinely 
charged with their preservation. 

It is not said merely that the oracles had been given to them, as 
they have been to us and to so many others, but that they were 
intrusted (iTno-Tev6rjo-av) with them ; so that this nation, though 
almost always rebellious through the long course of their history — 
though rejected to this day, and dispersed by the blast of God's 
wrath, which has " come upon them to the uttermost," St Paul 
says, 1 and has continued for eighteen centuries, — this nation, 
"always resisting the Holy Ghost," 2 as St Stephen said, — this 
very nation has shewn itself constantly faithful for thirty-three 
centuries on this single point of the Scriptures : it has guarded 
and still guards them for ever unaltered ! See here the privilege — 
" the advantage " — of the Jew, (to irepiaaov tov 'IovScllov,) to use 
St Paul's words. See it even in our own days. " As your fathers, 
so are ye." We might say to them, as Stephen did, " Stiffnecked 
and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy 
Ghost." "Which of the prophets have not your fathers perse- 
cuted ? and ye are like them." But no matter ; still the oracles 
of God are confided to you, and we may say of you at this day 
what Augustin wrote a thousand years ago, what is the naion of 
the Jews, even in our day but, as it were, a keeper of the records 
for Christians, carrying everywhere the law and the prophets ? as 
a witness of all the Church affirms, (" Et quid est aliud, hodieque, 
gens ipsa Judaeorum nisi qucedam scrinaria Christianorum 

1 1 Thess. ii. 16. • 2 Acts vii. 51, 52. 



THE DECLARATIONS OF SCRIPTUItE. 



459 



bajulans Legem et Prophetas ad testimonium assertionis ec- 
clesiae?")* 

451. Many persons at the first glance may object that our 
explanation of Paul's language gives at once a more extended 
and a more definite meaning to it than the expressions allow. 
But with the evidence of all the facts that we shall bring before 
our readers, they will feel obliged to acknowledge that this is its 
legitimate sense and exact intention, and that if the apostle has 
not expressed himself with greater fulness and precision on this 
divine preservation of the canon by means of the Jewish people, 
it is precisely because that doctrine, as we have already shewn, 
was an object of deep-felt conviction among all the Jews, among 
all the saints, and prophets, and apostles. It was amply suf- 
ficient that the divine fact should be here recalled to mind by 
these significant words — "Their advantage is much every way, 
but chiefly that they were intrusted (eTrLa-revOrjaav) with the 
oracles of God/' 

452. We shall go even further. When once all the striking 
and enduring facts that we are about to mention have passed 
under review, and demonstrated to us the true sense of this 
sentence of Paul — when once they have firmly established that 
such is indeed the part assigned by God thirty-three centuries 
ago to the Jewish nation for the perpetual preservation of the 
Old Testament — we shall demonstrate that such is equally the 
part assigned by Heaven to the collective body of Christian 
churches, good or bad, for the preservation not less perfect of the 
New Testament. And for this purpose we shall prove, by a fresh 
assemblage of other facts, not less striking and not less providen- 
tial, that if the God of Moses and the prophets has set apart the 
indestructible race of the Jews to be the guardians of His first 
oracles, the same God, when He was pleased to give His new 
people the eternal gospel, and the oracles not less imperishable of 
His new covenant, made use in like manner of the collective body 
of the Christian churches ; so that all of them unanimously, in 
spite of their differences and angry controversies on so many 
other points, have presented us for fourteen centuries with the 
same sacred collection, and have ever been for the New Testa- 

1 Contra Faustum, lib. xii., c. 13. 



4G0 



THE DOCTEINE OF THE CANON. 



ment depositaries not less faithful than Israel has been for the 
Old. 

453. Our faith, let us say, once more, possesses for the doctrine 
of the divine preservation of the canon a fourth and fifth class of 
proofs, both full of force and beauty. They comprise a twofold 
assemblage of facts — facts inexplicable apart from a divine inter- 
vention — facts tangible, splendid, and permanent. 

As these facts relate to each Testament respectively, we shall 
pass them under review in two successive chapters, confining our 
notice to the most important. 



CHAPTER IT. 



fourth class of proofs — an assemblage of facts relative 
to the old testament, attesting a divine intervention 
in its preservation by the jewish nation. 

Section First. 

the constant and wonderful fidelity of the jews, in 
reference to the canon, from moses to jesus christ. 

454. First Fact — It is very remarkable that, from Moses to 
Malachi, during the course of a thousand years, none of the 
prophets raised up by God to shew the house of Israel their 
transgressions ever uttered a single word which could lead to the 
belief or even the suspicion of the least alteration being made in 
the Scriptures on the part of the Jews. Every species of crime 
was committed among them ; they were reproached for everything 
by their prophets excepting for this. This fact, so striking and 
extraordinary, will appear manifestly providential to any one who 
will carefully study the history of the Hebrew nation under this 
aspect. From age to age you will find them a stiffnecked people, 
uncircumcised of heart and ear, ungrateful, unbelieving, impious 
idolatrous, rebellious against the Scriptures ; but never, never 
will you see them laying sacrilegious hands on their sacred books ; 
they never questioned their authority ; they never mutilated their 
contents ; a hidden, omnipotent hand always preserved them from 
such conduct. And how can we explain this contrast ? Why, on 
the one hand, were there so many hateful aberrations, and, on the 
other, such a rigid reserve, such unfaltering fidelity through so 
many ages? How came it to pass that God, who had allowed 



462 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE CANON. 



them to take their own course for all other crimes, always checked 
them from committing this ? " To them were intrusted (eTricr- 
Tevdrjaav) the oracles of God ! " 

455. The Second Fact. — This fidelity was attested by Jesus 
Christ. Jesus Christ, who so often reproached the Jews for their 
unbelief in regard to Moses, their blind adherence to the com- 
mandments of men and to traditions, by which they made the 
commandments of God of none effect, (Matt. xv. 6,) their outrages 
against the prophets, and their murderous madness— Jesus Christ 
never reproached them for having forgotten, mutilated, or falsified 
their Scriptures. "They did not believe Moses," He told them, (John 
v. 45-47 ;) but they trusted in Moses, and for this reason, Moses, 
" in whom they trusted," while at the same time they remained 
disobedient to his words, would be their accuser at the last day. 

456. The Third Fact. — The apostles never accused them of 
unfaithfulness as to the deposit of the oracles of God with which 
they had been intrusted. 

457. The Fourth Fact. — The sovereign Guardian of this 
imperishable record has been pleased, for the confirmation of our 
assurance on this point, to furnish us with two irrefragable wit- 
nesses — Josephus and Philo — both contemporaries of the apostles, 
both men of letters, both Pharisees, both descendants of Aaron, 
both in high repute among their people, and both versed in 
Hebrew learning, representing at once the mind of the Jews in 
the East, and of the Jews in the West. 1 

In a controversial treatise against Apion, a grammarian of 
Alexandria who lived in the midst of the Jews, Josephus enu- 
merates the books that were regarded as divine by all his people. 
" They maintain them even to death," he says ; " none of them 
dare to add or to take away anything/' And he is careful to add 
that, among these books, there are some more recent, composed 
since Artaxerxes, (that is to say, after the death of Ezra,) and 
which are not held to be worthy of the same faith, because (he 
adds) the exact succession of the prophets who preceded had not 
been continued since that epoch. 

As to Philo, we see him deputed by fifty thousand Jews of 
Alexandria, to offer prayers and sacrifices at Jerusalem, in the 

1 After the destruction of Jerusalem, Josephus fixed his residence at Rome. 



THE FIDELITY OF THE JEWS. 



463 



temple of their fathers. He also visited Eome on an embassy to 
the Emperor Caligula, to defend his countrymen against the 
accusations of Apion and others ; and we hear him declare, that 
" the Jews would rather die ten thousand times (jjuvpuaias avroix; 
airoQav&v) than permit a single word to be altered in their scrip- 
tures, (jjlt] prjfia avrovs [jlovov tcov jeypafi/ievcov /avrjcrcu)." 

Section Second. 

the fidelity not less astonishing of the jews to theie 
canon since jesus cheist to the present time. 

458. The Fifth Fact. — From the beginning of the Christian 
era, for nineteen centuries, never have this people, — in spite of 
their idolatrous veneration of the Talmud, in spite of their con- 
tinued state of revolt against God, in spite of their long and 
distant exiles among pagans, or Mohammedans, or Papists, who 
have everywhere persecuted them so often, even to death ; — never, 
we say, have this people been convicted of having altered the 
collection of their scriptures by any retrenchment or any addition. 
Such is the noble testimony borne to them 1760 years ago by the 
historian J osephus, in the time of Doniitian ; and such is the 
testimony borne to them so many centuries after by all historians 
and scholars. God has still stretched over them the same power- 
ful hand as in the days of Hadrian or Pompey the Great, of 
Antiochus Epiphanes or of Nebuchadnezzar. And to accomplish 
this work of twenty-four centuries, Divine Providence has never 
ceased to employ, without noise, but effectively, all sorts of means, 
— the forms of their worship, the labours of their doctors, the 
rivalship of their sects, the multitude of their synagogues, the 
precepts even of their Talmud, and their superstitious observances. 
We shall speak of these elsewhere. But whatever may be thought 
of all these means, let us admire with what certainty " the oracles 
of God have been committed to them." 

459. The Sixth Fact. — It is of universal notoriety, that at the 
present day, after thirty-four centuries, the Jews, all over the 
globe, receive only one and the same canon. The astonishing 
identity of the copies of the Hebrew Scriptures all over the world, 
presents itself as one of the most astonishing phenomena that the 



464 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE CANON. 



history of literature and humanity can offer. This fact has been 
set before the world in the clearest light, in the middle of the 
eighteenth century, by the researches of Houbigant, in the four 
folio volumes of his Biblia Hebraica; also by the immense labours 
of John Henry Michaelis;! later still, (1776, 1780,) by the great 
critical edition of the Hebrew Scriptures by Kennicott, exhibiting 
a collation of 694 manuscripts, which took him twenty- nine 
years; 2 the labours of Professor Eossi on 731 manuscripts not 
examined by Kennicott ; 3 and, likewise, at the beginning of the 
present century, the collation, by Yeates, of the famous roll of the 
Jews of Malabar, 4 with our printed editions of Van der Hooght ; 
and, more recently still, the twelve manuscripts obtained in the 
centre of China 5 by the Anglican bishop of Hong-Kong, and 
presented to the Asiatic Society by Sir John Bowring. 

When we consider, as we have said elsewhere, that the Bible 
has constantly been recopied for thirty centuries — that it has passed 
through all the catastrophes and all the wanderings of the people 
of Israel — that, transported for seventy years to Babylon, often 
prohibited, often committed to the flames, since the days of the 
Philistines to those of the Seleucidae, it has passed, from that 
time through eighteen centuries of persecution, — certainly, to ex- 
plain this mysterious preservation, we must have recourse to the 
declaration of St Paul, — " to them were intrusted the oracles of 
God." 

Section Third. 

the text compared with the versions. 

460. The Seventh Fact. — This divine intervention in the pre- 
servation for ages of the canon becomes more striking when we 
contrast the inviolability of the Hebrew original, during the course 
of 3000 years, with the rapid deterioration of the versions made 
from it at different times ; because God, though He has pledged 

1 Biblia Hebraica, Halae, 1720, Praefat. He was assisted by twelve members 
of a collegium orientate theologicum, founded in 1702 by Herman Francke. 

2 Dissertatio Generalis, in 600 pages. Brunswick, 1783. 

3 See Rosenmiiller, Handbuch, ii., 45. 

4 Consisting of thirty-seven skins died red, obtained, 1808, by Dr Claudius 
Buchanan, and now deposited in the university of Cambridge. 

5 In Koe-fung-foo, the capital of the province of Hoonan. 



THE TEXT COMPARED WITH THE VEKSIONS. 



465 



Himself to guard the one, has made no promise respecting the 
others. 

461. We notice, first, the deterioration of the Greek version of 
the LXX. ; and then that of the two Latin versions, the Vetus 
Itala, and the Vulgate of St Jerome ; — great deterioration as to 
the text, which is often no longer intelligible ; and deterioration 
still more enormous as to the canon, which soon found itself sur- 
charged with nineteen apocryphal books. 1 

462. Though the version of the LXX. had acquired great 
credit throughout the East, first amono- the Jews, and then anions; 
Christians, this important monument, corrupted at the end of two 
centuries by the Jews alone, was soon corrupted much more by 
Christian copyists, some allowing themselves to join the Apocrypha 
to it, and others transcribing it with increasing carelessness. It 
is a known fact, that this alteration of the Greek version, which 
was already considerable in the time of Origen, was made greater 
by the very labours of this distinguished man. He had devoted 
twenty-eight years of his life to recover the genuine Greek text ; 
but his marginal notes, in the issue, increased the evil, by finding 
their way into the version itself, through the unskilfulness of 
copyists. 

463. As to the Latin versions, we know also the history of 
their enormous alterations. The ancient Italic version (Vetus 
Itala) made, it would appear, in Africa, about the end of the first 
or the beginning of the second century, but made from the Greek 
of the Seventy, and not from the original Hebrew, was so com- 
pletely altered in the time of Jerome, that this father, having la- 
boured for some time at correcting it by the Hexapla of Origen, 
undertook, towards the close of the fourth century, the great task 
of retranslating the Old Testament according to the original. 
This new version, adopted in the West from the seventh century,2 

1 (1.) The Prayer of Manasseh; (2. and 3.) The Book of Esdras; (4.) The Con- 
clusion of Job; (5.) A Hundred and Fifty-first Psalm; (6. and 7.) Tobit and 
Judith; (S.) Additions to Esther; (9.) The Wisdom of Philo ; (10.) Ecclesiasticus ; 
(ll.)Baruch; (12.) The Epistle of Jeremiah; (13.) Song of the Three Hebrews; 
(14.) Susanna; (15.) Bel and the Dragon; (16. and 17.) The Two First Books of 
the Maccabees; (18. and 19.) The Two Latter Books. 

3 Isidor. Hisp., (636;) De Officio Ecclesiae, p. 12. " Hieronymus .... cujua 
editione omnes ecclesiae usquequaque utuntur." 

2 G 



466 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE CANON. 



under the name of the Vulgate, was itself soon altered, in propor- 
tion as copies of it were multiplied, and likewise by a mixture of 
readings borrowed from the Vetus Itala. 1 In vain, to correct the 
evil, Cassiodorus, in the sixth century, 2 published the two versions 
in parallel columns. This remedy only aggravated it, as had been 
the case with the Greek, through Origen's Hexapla. In vain 
Alcuin, in the eighth century, exerted himself, by the order of 
Charlemagne, to procure more correct copies. In vain Archbishop 
Lanfranc, in the eleventh century, Cardinal Nicholas and others, 
in the twelfth and thirteenth, laboured for the same purpose, the 
text was fallen into such confusion that the manuscripts of the 
Middle Ages differed essentially from the first printed editions. 3 
In vain Kobert Stephens, in the sixteenth century, published his 
six critical editions ; the doctors of the Sorbonne censured them. 
In vain the professors of Louvain endeavoured to improve it by 
their editions of 1547, 1573, and 1586. In vain Pope Sextus V. 
wished to improve it, by pronouncing as authentic his edition, in 
1590, of the text adopted previously by the Council of Trent ; this 
edition, in spite of all the decrees of the Pope, and the previous 
ratification of the Council, was found to be so shamefully in- 
correct, that Clement VIII., in 1592, suppressed it entirely, to 
substitute his own. 4 And now we know with what success Kor- 
tholtS has refuted the pretensions of Bellarmine respecting this 
latter vulgate ; and especially with what overwhelming evidence 
the learned Thomas James has demonstrated its errors, additions, 
omissions and contradictions. 6 

1 See Teschendorf, Novum Testament'um, 1849, prolegomena, p. 83; and 1858, 
p. 64. 

2 " Jam sexto saeculo," says Tischendorf, " Cassiodori senis cura in eo posita, 
erat, ut conlatis priscis codicibus textus Hieronymi restitueretur." 

a Moreover, these were made from manuscripts badly chosen, and much more 
recent than the Codex Amiatinus, now preserved in the library of St Laurence at 
Florence, dated 541, and reproduced in his Latin version by the care of Tischen- 
dorf, (Testam. Triglott., proleg. lxxxi. Leips.ic, 1854.) See also Carpzov., Critica 
Sacra, part ii., cap. vi. 

4 See Rich. Simon, Hist. Crit. des Versions der N. T., chap. xii. 

5 De Variis Script. Editionib., cap. viii.-xiv., (1686.) 

6 In his Bellum Papale sive Concordia Discors., Sexti Quinti et Clementis 
Octavi Circa Hieronymianam Editionem, &c. Lond., 1678, (1st ed., 1600.) 



THE DIVISIONS OF THE JEWS. 



467 



Section Foueth. 
the serious divisions of the jews. 

464. The Eighth Fact. — This preservation of the Old Testa- 
ment, so manifestly Divine — this marvellous and universal agree- 
ment of the Jewish people on the canon, as the text of the oracles 
of God — is rendered still more striking by their serious divisions 
on every other subject. Observe the hostility of their ancient 
sects ; observe their Pharisees, and the folly of their traditions, 
which, opposed as they were to the divine declarations, never 
ventured to exalt themselves against one of these sacred books. 
Observe the impiety of their Sadducees, who even denied the 
existence of spirits, and who, though altogether ignorant, and con- 
tradicting the Scriptures, (Mark xii. 24 ; Matt. xxii. 29,) yet 
never rejected, and never altered them. Observe, again, the bold- 
ness of their modern neologists, their unbelief, their adoption of 
the most repulsive systems of contemporaneous rationalism, and 
their materialism on the subject even of the destinies of Israel. 
Observe, especially, the idolatrous fondness of almost all their 
synagogues and doctors for the Talmud, the teachings of which 
they exalt even at this day to the level of, and even above, the 
Scriptures. God has left them to themselves for all their aberra- 
tions and all their errors. What do I say ? Did He not permit 
them, at first, "to kill the Prince of Life/' and then, for 1800 
years, to reject Him whom all their Scriptures announce? Yes; 
but He never permitted them to change the canon or the text of 
these very Scriptures, because " the sacred deposit had been in- 
trusted to them." 

Section Fifth. 

the example of jesus and his apostles in relation to the 

apocrypha. 

465. The Ninth Fact. — We have cited above the cardinal and 
authoritative fact — the example of Jesus Christ. Our canon of 
the Old Testament, such as we have received it from the Jews, as 
we have said, must have been guaranteed and guarded by God, 
since Jesus Christ, the Alpha and Omega of all the divine reve- 



468 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE CANON. 



lations — Jesus Christ, the " God of the holy prophets," (Rev. 
xxii. 6,) — received it in its entireness, reading it in the synagogue, 
quoting it in all His teachings, and, even on the cross, expounding 
it in all its parts, (Moses, the Psalms, and the Prophets,) — after 
His resurrection — in His miraculous appearances, &c. 

466. But Jesus Christ, while recognising the canon of the Old 
Testament as a perfect and sacred collection, never cited any of 
the Apocryphal books 1 as the Word of God; neither did His 
apostles. And yet these books are equal in extent to at least a 
sixth part of the Holy Scriptures ; while we count as many as 
300 passages of the Old Testament quoted in the New. 

Section Sixth, 
divine injunctions. 

467. The Tenth Fact. — The continual intervention of God for 
the preservation of His Word is often rendered manifest by the 
divine injunctions. When Moses had written the book of the 
law, without anything being deficient, it was needful, in order to 
impress all hearts with the deepest reverence for it, to deliver it 
to the priests and to all the elders of Israel, ordering the Levites, 
who bare the ark, to take the Holy Book and put it in the side of 
the ark of the covenant, in the Holy of Holies, where the divine 
Presence was manifested, and into which the high priest entered 
only once a year. 2 The order, moreover, had been given, that if 
any one was recognised as a false prophet, or enticed his neighbour 
to idolatry, death without mercy was to be inflicted, even on a 
brother, a son, a daughter, a beloved wife, or a most intimate 
friend. The hands of his nearest relations were to be the first to 
execute the punishment, and then the hands of all the people. 3 
And the order was added, that every seven years this Holy Word 

1 The passages of the New Testament which certain authors have alleged were 
cited from the Apocrypha were not taken from it; they are in the canonical 
books. See this question treated by Horne, (Introd., Appendix, p. 464, London, 
1846,) and especially in Cosin, who carefully discusses the objected passages, 
(History of the Canon, ch. iii., art. 34-41.) See also our Appendix on the 
Apocrypha. 

2 Deut. xxxi. 9, 24-26. 

3 Deut. xiii. 5, xviii. 20; Jer. xiv. 15; Zech. xiii. 3. 



THE DIVINE DISPENSATIONS. 



469 



was to be recited publicly to all Israel, assembled before Jehovah, 1 
and that, at every new reign, the king, as soon as he had mounted 
the throne, was to copy it with his own hand from the sacred 
autograph which the priests kept in the sanctuary. 2 

Later still, all the inspired books were deposited in the most 
Holy Place. 3 

Section Seventh. 

the divine dispensations. 

468. The Eleventh Fact. — The same intervention is equally 
manifested by protective dispensations. A long series of them 
may be seen in the history of this people. The Holy Word was 
very often in danger of being lost and disappearing ; 4 but the 
power of the Most High never ceased to take means for its pre- 
servation. 

From Samuel to the days of Ezra, God raised up, especially in 
the darkest times, what Josephus has termed the uninterrupted 
succession of the prophets^ (rrjv tcov npocpwTwv aKpLftij SiaSoyrfv.) 
Keeping watch like sentinels in the house of God, and faithful to 
the death, these prophets preserved the deposit of the ancient 
Scriptures, enriched it with new books, and bore their testimony 
to it, without ever complaining (as we have said) that it had 
suffered the least alteration. You see them, even during the 
captivity of seventy years, continuing their admirable ministry ; — 
Jeremiah, in the midst of the poor Jews who were left in Palestine ; 
Ezekiel, among the exiles scattered throughout Assyria; Daniel, 
among the captives in Babylon ; Ezekiel citing at a distance with 
admiration Daniel his contemporary ; 6 Daniel in like manner 
studying at a distance Jeremiah, 7 — until at last, Ezra, " the scribe 
of the law of the God of heaven," (Ezra vii. 21,) assisted by the 
prophets Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, finally arranged the 
sacred collection of the Scriptures, and completed the twenty- two 
books of the sacred oracles. 

1 Deut. xxxi. 10; Jos. viii. 35. 

2 Deut. xvii. 18 ; Jo.sh. i. 8; 2 Kings xi. 12; 2 Chron. xxiii. 11. 

3 Josephus, Antiq., iii., 3, § 1 ; De Bello Jud., vii., 5 ; 1 Sam. x. 25. 

4 Amos viii. 11 ; 2 Chron. xv. 3, xvii. 9, xxix. 7, xxxi. 4, 21, xxxiv. 15, &c. 

5 Contra Apion, i., 8; Eusebius, Hist. Ecol., iii., 10. 

6 Ezek. xxviii. 3, xiv. 14, 20. 7 Dan. ix. 6, 11. 



470 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE CANON. 



From that time the ancient code was complete, and the pro- 
phetic voice was long silent, to train men's minds to the expecta- 
tion of the king Messiah, till at last, " in the sixteenth year of the 
reign of Tiberius, . . . the word of God came afresh to John, the 
son of Zecharias, in the wilderness and this forerunner of the 
Most High announced, by the baptism of repentance, " the Lamb 
of God who taketh away the sins of the world," and who would 
baptize in the Holy Ghost and in fire. 1 

469. It is the general opinion of the Jews, that no book written 
after Malachi was inspired. Josephus 2 affirms it, the Book of 
Maccabees repeats it, 3 and, for this reason, the Jews have named 
Malachi, " the seal of the prophets/' (D WISH D-H 5 )!"^) " because 
the succession of these men of God was then broken/' Hottinger 
observes, 4 — " Et quia scriptio 6e6iTvev<TT0$ in prophetarum libris 
defecit!' " After Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi," says Jerome,5 
" I have seen no other prophet till John the Baptist, — Nullos alios 
prophetas usque ad Joannem Baptistam videram." 

And Augustin, in his City of God, (finished two years before 
his death,) tells us, in like manner, that " since Malachi, Haggai, 
Ezra, and Zechariah, the Jews had no more prophets till the 
advent of the Saviour. . . . These prophets were the last to whom 
they attributed a canonical authority, — Post Malachiam, Hag- 
gceum, et Zechariam, et Esdram, non hahuerunt prophetas usque 
ad salvatores adventum. . . . Hos Judcei in auctoritatem canoni- 
cam receptos novissimos habent," (xvii., the last chapter.) 

Section Eighth, 
the calamities of the jews. 

470. The Tivelfth Fact. — Another class of facts, which strik- 
ingly demonstrate the same truth, is the use the Divine Omni- 
potence has always made of even the calamities of the Jews for 
the preservation and dispensation of their Scriptures. 

Everything has conduced, in the Lord's hands, to this important 

1 Luke i. 16, 17, 76, iii., 4, 16. ? Contra Apion, i., § 8. 

3 Maccab. ix. 27, xiv. 41. 

4 Thesaurus Philologicus, p. 483. Tiguri, 1639. 5 In Isa. xlix. 21. 



THE CALAMITIES OF THE JEWS. 



471 



end — the destruction of their temple, their migrations, their long- 
oppression, the loss of their language, the dispersion of their race. 

(1.) The destruction of their temple. This event gave birth to 
the powerful institution of their numerous synagogues. In each 
of these buildings was placed a sacred chest, containing the roll 
of the Scriptures, that at first the law might be read three times 
in the week, and then, from the time of Antiochus, the prophets 
every Sabbath-day. 1 The rabbins said "that a synagogue ought 
to be built wherever ten Jews could be found to meet together." 
Jerusalem alone, in the days of Jesus Christ, contained 480. 2 

(2.) Their migrations. Their synagogues and their Scriptures 
accompanied them to all parts of the ancient world, — to Italy, to 
Spain, to Africa, to Asia, to Persia, to Babylonia, and even to 
China. "Moses of old time hath in every city," St James 
affirmed, " them that preach him, being read in the synagogues 
every Sabbath-clay," (Acts xv. 25.) 

(3.) The loss of their language. This event originated, first, an 
influential class of scribes, and then a vast and important collec- 
tion of Targums. The scribes devoted especially to the study and 
interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures were numerous, even in 
the time of Ezra. We see them then stationed round him at the 
feast of tabernacles, translating into Chaldee for the people the 
Scriptures which the prophet read in Hebrew, (Neh. vii. 3-8.) 
And as to the Targums, (Chaldee paraphrases,) they are of great 
value still, in the present day, to attest the inviolable purity of 
the ancient Hebrew text, and to assist in its interpretation — the 
Targv.m of Onkelos on the books of Moses ; the Tar gum of 
Jonathan on the greater and minor prophets; the Targum of 
Joseph the blind on the Hagiographa ; and the Targum of Jeru- 
salem on the Pentateuch. 3 

(4.) Their long oppression under Alexander's successors. This 
oppression originated, 280 years before Christ, the celebrated 
Greek version of the Septuagint, which, made by Jews for the use 
of Jews, contributed so powerfully to spread and to preserve 
among all nations the knowledge of the Old Testament. 

1 Lightfoot, (on Matt. iv. 23.) 

2 Prideaux, Connexion, &c, vi. ; Buxtorf, Lexicon Rabbinicum, col. 292. 

3 See, on the Targums, Carpzov., Critica Sacra Vet. Testaraenti, part, ii., cap. i. 



472 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE CANON. 



(5.) I have named, lastly, the dispersion of their race. Even 
this calamity made them feel the need of providing for ever for 
the perfect preservation of the letter of their Scriptures, and the 
correct pronunciation of every Hebrew word, by the astonishing 
performance of the Masora, (rntoQ ? ) — that is to say, a collec- 
tion of traditions relative to the minutest details of the sacred 
text ; the fixation of the accents and vowel-points ; the enumera- 
tion of the verses, words, and letters — 5245 verses in the Pen- 
tateuch, for instance, and 23,206 in the whole Bible; the indication 
of irregularities found in the position, and form, or size of certain 
letters ; the marginal corrections of the Keri and the Chetib, &c, 
&c. It is, therefore, a very proper title the Jews themselves have 
given to the Masora — " The Fence of the Law" since it preserves 
the Old Testament from all invasion and alteration, not only in 
its sacred canon, but in its words, letters, and smallest accents. 



Section Ninth, 
the mikacle of their race. 

471. The Thirteenth Fact — The miraculous preservation of 
the Jewish people is not only an image, but a pledge, of the 
miraculous preservation of their Scriptures. 

" The existence of this people, through 1700 years of exile and 
depression," says Basnage, " is the greatest prodigy that can be 
imagined. The event is unexampled." See them always wander- 
ing and dispersed ; always unbelieving, yet guarding the Scrip- 
tures ; always hated, spoiled, persecuted, massacred, and yet inde- 
structible, and, as it were, infusible, amidst all the other nations 
on the face of the globe. They alone, over all the earth, offer the 
unheard-of spectacle of one and the same family, without foreign 
intermixture, for 3000 years, in the midst of a confused mingling 
of all the human races. They alone have seen all the empires of 
their most powerful persecutors perish, one after another, whilst 
they, without power, without a safe asylum, without country, are 
still in existence, according to the prophecies of their sacred 
books, " without a king, without a prince, without a temple, with- 
out sacrifice, without an image, without an altar," and, conse- 



THE APOCRYPHAL BOOKS. 



473 



quently, without the possibility of a worship conformed to their 
own ritual, (Hosea iii. 4.) 

At the strange and incomparable spectacle of this bush of 
Horeb, kept always burning before the eyes of all nations for 
3000 years, but always unconsumed, we say, that if this un- 
exampled prodigy attests that an invisible almighty arm has 
been constantly extended over this people, we are also authorised 
to affirm, that the astonishing preservation of the Holy Scriptures, 
carried to all places by this same people attests a Divine agency of 
the same order. The Jew carries them for thirty centuries, with- 
out losing a single word of them, and without a single copy, (even 
in our day,) among the most ancient synagogue in Judea or Persia, 
being found to differ from the copies read in Morocco, or in the 
synagogues of America. Certainly, this preservation of a collection 
that was begun three centuries before the Trojan war, that took 
nine centuries to complete, and that has been continually recopied 
from that time, in all regions of the earth, during 3000 years, 
— this signal, incomparable fact, adapted to impress equally the 
simplest and the loftiest minds — this fact, so evidently miraculous, 
declares to us, with irresistible force, that God watches over the 
nation ; over the one, to maintain it unaltered ; as over the other, 
to preserve it imperishable to the end of time. 

Section Tenth. 

human books intruded into the jewish canon by one of 
the christian sects. 

472. The Fourteenth Fact — The history of apocryphal books 
attests, not less powerfully, the same truth, and renders more con- 
spicuous, by what has taken place among Christians, the astonish- 
ing fidelity of the Jews in the preservation of their Scriptures. 

How much more credible would it appear that, through igno- 
rance, or carelessness, to which exile, misfortune, and dispersion 
had reduced them, the Israelites would be more tempted than 
the Christians to introduce into their sacred collection those 
apocryphal writings which treat of their own history, and tend, 
almost all of them, to flatter their national pride. 

To appreciate the full force of this fourteenth fact, it must be 



474 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE CANON. 



viewed, at the same time, in its relation to Christians and to Jews, 
though, in some respects, we may anticipate what we have to say- 
in a subsequent chapter, when we treat of the New Testament. 

If, on the one hand, the Jews, to whom were intrusted the 
oracles of God, could crucify the Lord of Glory, and for 1800 
years reject the New Testament, which was never intrusted to 
them, yet this people were not disposed, or, at least, they never 
were able, and never will be, to introduce any apocryphal book 
into the Old Testament, because the deposit was intrusted to 
them ; and God, under this form, became the guarantee. 

And, on the other hand, if we have seen among Christians in 
the sixteenth century a numerous and powerful sect assume the 
power to introduce as the Word of God eleven human books into 
the canon of the Old Testament, it is only because the deposit had 
not been intrusted to them. It was intrusted to the Jews, not to 
us ; we receive it from their hands. 

473. The twofold fact and the twofold contrast we have just 
pointed out claim the most attentive consideration. While the 
Church of Eome has put. forth such pretensions with respect to 
the Old Testament, neither this sect, powerful as it is, nor any of 
the other Christian sects, has been able to add a single apocryphal 
book to the New Testament ; God has not permitted it, and will 
not permit it. He will not permit it, because all Christian 
churches, good or bad, faithful or unfaithful, have been intrusted 
with this sacred deposit, and because all must preserve it inviolate, 
as the Jews have preserved the Old, God having constituted Him- 
self the guarantee of their fidelity. 

Let, then, the disciples of Jesus Christ contemplate with reve- 
rence these two depositaries of our sacred books, and see with 
what power this twofold testimony of their contrast and their 
resemblance presents itself before their eyes. Behold them equally 
indocile, equally refractory as to the deposit that was not intrusted 
to them ; but behold both the one and the other alike continuing 
always docile and always faithful as to the deposit with which they 
are concerned ; the one, for 2300 years since the completion of 
the Old Testament; the other, for 1400 years since the entire 
canon of the New Testament has been definitely received by all the 
churches of Christendom. 



THE TESTIMONY OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



475 



474. Let it then be clearly understood, that neither ignorance nor 
error, nor the profane rashness of this or that church throughout 
Christendom on the subject of the Old Testament, will be capable 
of at all affecting the inviolability of a canon which was never 
intrusted to them. 

If I have deposited my last will under strictly legal forms, with 
a notary duly chosen, will my heirs after my decease have the 
least doubt in the world of the integrity or validity of this docu- 
ment, because one of them might contrive to introduce, after 
many years, some remarkable additions into the authentic copy he 
has received of it, and because he presumes to take no account of 
the original text, or of the attestation, or of the depositary, or of 
the laws ? They will not feel the slightest concern. What does 
it signify to them ? This folly and culpable fancy cannot in the 
least affect the paternal testament. 

Thus, then, the outrage committed by the Council of Trent in 
1546, so far from weakening the marvellous fact of the inviola- 
bility of the Old Testament, serves only to render it more conspicu- 
ous. For, as we have said, even the unfaithfulness of the Chris- 
tians and that of the Jews with respect to that of the two deposits 
with which they were not intrusted, makes their unshaken fidelity 
in respect of the other more impressive, and powerfully demon- 
strates to us the intervention of God in this double testimony. 

Section Eleventh, 
the testimony op the eastern church. 

475. A Fifteenth Fact which illustrates still more the admir- 
able fidelity of Israel in reference to the canon, and powerfully 
confirms the interpretation which the Christian Church in every 
age has given, like ourselves, to Pauls doctrine on the part provi- 
dentially assigned to this people for the preservation of the Old 
Testament, is the constant testimony of the whole Eastern Church. 

We speak here not only of its loud protest against the new 
dogma of the Church of Home on the subject of the apocryphal 
books, but especially of the sacred reason which it alleges, with 
ourselves, to condemn it. You have ignored, she says, the scrip- 



476 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE CANON. 



tural doctrine relative to the canon ; you have forgotten that " the 
oracles of God have been intrusted to the Jews." 

We must here adduce the evidence on behalf of this testimony, 
because the doctors of the Church of Rome, being aware how 
forcibly it tells against them, have often endeavoured to mislead 
us on this important fact. 

The Orthodox Catholic Oriental Church, as she likes to call 
herself — this Church, more ancient than that of Rome — " has never 
received the apocryphal books into the canon of the inspired 
books," notwithstanding the estimation in which she otherwise 
holds many of these books, as worthy of being read, and notwith- 
standing the temptation presented to her more than to other 
churches from the use she has always made of the Greek version 
of the LXX. 

In evidence of this important fact, it will be sufficient to cite 
here (1.) "The Orthodox Doctrine," 1 by Plato, (Archbishop of 
Moscow,) published at Athens in 1836 ; and (2.) " The Great 
Catechism of the Orthodox Catholic Eastern Church," approved 
by the holy supreme synod, and "published at Moscow in 1839 
by order of his imperial majesty for the use of schools and all 
orthodox Christians." This latter work, sent to all the patriarchs, 
Blackmore says, (preface, pp. 6, 9,) is held throughout the East to 
be of higher authority even than the Eighteen Articles of the 
Synod of Bethlehem, or than the Orthodox Concession. It was 
drawn up by Philaret, the last metropolitan of Moscow, the im- 
mediate successor of Plato. 

476. In his Orthodox Doctrine, the illustrious archbishop, after 
giving the names of the twenty-two books of the Old Testament 
just as they have been transmitted to us by the Jewish canon, 
(from Genesis to Malachi,) acids, " And as to all those that are not 
included in this number, they contain many passages morally 
deserving of praise, but they have never been received by the 
Church as canonical. ('Oora Be ewai e^co airo tov apcOfibv rov- 
tov, ay/coXa Trepikyovai iroXka 'rjOuca a^ikiratva Bev 2 ehe^O^aav 

O/XO)? 7TOT6 CO? KCLVQVIKCL VTTO T^? ' EKfcXrjarLCLS.) " ^ 

1 y Op66$o£-os Aibaa-KaXia, (in modern Greek,) at Athens, 1836, p. 59. 

2 Need we say that div, derived from ovftev, is the negative in modern Greek. 

3 It is added in Greek — See Gregory the theologian, in his verses (artx 01 ?) 



THE TESTIMONY OF THE EASTERN CHUKCH. 477 



477. As to the Great Catechism of the Orthodox Catholic 
Eastern Church, the following are its lessons on the canon : — > 

" Quest. How many books are there in the Old Testament ? 

" Ans. St Cyril of Jerusalem, St Athanasius the Great, and St 
John of Damascus reckoned twenty-two, in conformity with the 
Jews, who number them thus in the original Hebrew. 

" Quest. Why must we conform to the recension of the 
Jews ? 

"Ans. Because, as the apostle Paul has said, to them were the 
oracles of God intrusted, and the sacred books of the old covenant 
have been received from the Hebrew Church of that covenant by 
the Christian Church of the new, (Eom. iii. 2.) 

" Quest, How do St Cyril and St Athanasius enumerate the 
books of the Old Testament % 

" Ans. As follows: — (1.) Genesis; (2.) Exodus; (3.) Leviticus; 
(4.) Numbers; (5.) Deuteronomy; (6.) Joshua; (7.) Judges, with 
Euth; (8.) 1st and 2d Kings; (9.) 3d and 4th Kings; (10.) 
Pciralepomena ; (11.) Ezra and Nehemiah ; (12.) Esther; (13.) 
Job ; (14.) Psalms ; (] 5.) Proverbs ; (16.) Ecclesiastes ; (17.) Song 
of Songs; (18.) Isaiah; (19.) Jeremiah; (20.) Ezekiel ; (21.) 
Daniel ; (22.) The Twelve Minor Prophets. 

" Quest, Why do they not reckon the Book of Wisdom of the 
Son of Sirach, and some others? 

" Ans. Because they are not in the Hebrew. 

" Quest. How must they be considered ? 

"Ans. Athanasius the Great said that the ancient fathers 
caused them to be read to the proselytes who were preparing to 
enter the Church." 

478. We may further consult, on this point, the Comparative 
View of the Nineteen Doctrines that Separate the Eastern and 
Western Churches, composed in 1815 by the last metropolitan 
of Moscow, and transmitted to Dr Pinkerton 1 in 1832, with 
permission to publish it. The following is the tenth article : — 

" The Holy Scriptures, which serve as the rule of our faith, are 
contained in the thirty-nine canonical books of the Old Testa- 

on the books of the Old and Xew Testament ; and Metrophanes, in the confession 
of the Eastern Church, (fj.«f). (.) 

1 Pinkerton's Russia, London, 1833, p. 39. 



478 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE CANON. 



ment, 1 and in the twenty-seven of the New. But the third and 
fourth of Ezra, Tobit, Judith, the Wisdom of Solomon, Baruch, 
the first, second, and third of Maccabees, as well as various addi- 
tions made to certain books of the Old Testament ; — all these 
writings, though esteemed by the Church for their antiquity and 
the sound doctrine they contain, are regarded by her as apocry- 
phal; that is, as books of which the divine origin is hidden from 
our faith, or is an object of doubt, because neither the Church of 
the Old Testament nor the Christian Church has ever acknow- 
ledged them as canonical" 

479. The Sixteenth Fact. — We shall presently shew that this 
was in like manner the constant testimony of the whole Western 
Church till the Council of Trent, and that an appeal was always 
made to the doctrine of Paul, and to the divine commission given 
to the Jewish people, as had been done by J erome, Tertullian, and 
Pope Gregory. 

Section Twelfth. 

this resistance of the eastern church is rendered more 
striking by the universality of the use of the 
septuagint. 

480. The Seventeenth Fact. — When we consider that the Greek 
version of the LXX. was either by itself, or by the Latin version 
made from it, of universal use in the ancient Church to the days 
of Jerome ; while all the copies of it were more or less surcharged 
with apocryphal books by the Christians of Egypt, and that they 
had unwisely adopted the custom of binding them with the Scrip- 
tures, though never attributing to them the same authority, — we 
ought to be filled with admiration at that providence which 
watches over the oracles of God, that, in spite of all these temp- 
tations, the Jewish synagogues never admitted them, however 
flattering these human books might be to their national pride. 
And we shall presently see, that even the Christian churches, both 
in the East and West, were a long time kept from adopting these 
false scriptures as canonical. 

1 This is the manner in which our own Bibles reckon the twenty-two books of 

the Jews. 



INFERENCE FROM THESE SEVENTEEN FACTS. 



479 



Section Thirteenth. 

inference to be drawn from these seventeen facts. 

481. We are able, then, to infer once more, from this fourth 
class of proofs, the divine inviolability of the sacred canon of the 
Old Testament. 

For we have been establishing, by an assemblage of facts, almost 
all marvellous, powerful, and extending through ages, that if the 
people of the Jews, sovereignly appointed, in spite of their calami- 
ties and their vices, to be the constant depositary of the oracles of 
God, and to transmit them for ever to the world in their integrity 
■ — if this miraculous people, to the present time, and for thirty- 
three centuries, have been perfectly faithful to the Divine man- 
date, and that, during the very time of its longest dispersions, and 
most criminal rebellions, from the days of Pharaoh and Semira- 
mis, to those of Napoleon III. and Victoria — this incomparable 
phenomenon, which has never ceased to emit its splendour before 
all nations, and across all the ages of their history, — this phe- 
nomenon, not more than any of the seventeen great facts which 
accompany it, not being explicable from mere natural causes, will 
always clearly demonstrate to us the secret and constant interven- 
of the Divine power. 

Thus, then, in relation to the Old Testament, we are obliged, at 
the end of this fourth chapter, to infer seventeen times, from all 
these facts, and their marvellous combination, what, in our pre- 
ceding chapters, we had already inferred four times, — from the 
character of God, — from His works in the Church, — from the 
infallible testimony of Jesus Christ, and His apostles, — and from 
the positive statement in the Epistle to the Romans ; namely, the 
certainty of that doctrine which the apostle Paul announced, and 
which we have named, " the doctrine of the canon/' 

This doctrine, which is its own guarantee, is that which has 
constituted the Jewish people the incorruptible record-keeper (as 
Augustin calls them) 1 of their sacred oracles — which has never 
ceased to watch over this deposit from age to age, and now main- 

1 Capsarii nostri, (on Pa. xl. ;) Librarii nostri, (on Ts. lvi. ;) Scriniaria nostra, 
(Contra Faust., xii., 13.) 



480 



THE DOCTKINE OF THE CANON. 



tains it ever intact and complete ; so that this preservation is not 
less miraculous than that of the race itself of the Jews, distinct 
from all nations for 3780 years, infusible, and indestructible, in 
every region under heaven. 

In a word, we infer that this inviolability of the canon of Scrip- 
ture must be regarded, as well as the Divine inspiration of their 
text, as one of the doctrines of our faith. 

482. Go, then, with confidence, bearing in your hands Moses 
and the prophets, ye ministers of our churches, ye pastors of our 
cultivated cities, and ye humble evangelists of our villages, and ye, 
also, who traverse our Alps, like Felix Neff, from one chalet to 
another, and ye holy missionaries of Africa or Asia, address 
with confidence your most learned equally with your least edu- 
cated hearers ; go with this Book of God, without fearing lest 
they should ask the history of its canon, and without being dis- 
quieted about what it is not in your power to tell them, since it 
does not exist. You know as much respecting it as Daniel the 
prophet, or as Paul the apostle of the Gentiles. You know 
even more than they, since you possess eighteen or twenty-three 
centuries more of experience, during which God has incessantly 
preserved, by means of the Jews, His oracles pure from all adul- 
teration. Go, then, boldly, as the prophet went to the syna- 
gogues of Babylon, — as the apostle went to those of Lycaonia; 
for you have the same things to tell them to establish the in- 
tegrity of the sacred volume — and all that they could say, you can 
say. Go, then, ye ministers of the gospel — go, full of confidence, 
preach Jesus Christ everywhere, by the books of Moses, the 
Psalms, and the Prophets. Go, preach His pre-existence, His 
Divinity, His cross, His expiatory sacrifice, His resurrection, His 
grace, His presence with His people, His return, and His glory. 
The whole Gospel is found in them. Let these mighty Scriptures 
be ever in your hands. By them the man of God is rendered 
"wise unto salvation through faith that is in Christ Jesus." 1 If the 
New Testament sheds immense light upon the Old, the Old Testa- 
ment, in its turn, illuminates the New to its most secret depths. 
" He is not a man of full age," says St Paul, " but a babe, in the 



1 2 Tim. iii. 15. 



INFERENCES FROM THESE SEVENTEEN FACTS. 



481 



first principles of the oracles of God, and still to be nourished 
with milk, who is not well versed in Moses and the prophets." 
I pass now to the New Testament. 

483. Yet, before coming to it, it appears necessary for us to set 
apart thirty-six propositions to the question of the apocryphal 
books, because they will be needed, we think, as an indispensable 
lemma for the last part of our argument. We have made a sepa- 
rate chapter of them on account of the extent and importance of 
the subject. It is true, it may be objected, that this topic, to 
which we recur, does not necessarily belong to the object before 
us ; since we are here discussing the Old Testament, which was 
intrusted to the Jews, and not to Christians. What has it to do 
with the question, it may be said, if, 2000 years after the last 
prophet had ceased to write, 1 one religious sect was to be found 
in the West that attempted to add eleven books to their Scrip- 
tures ? 

We answer that, in fact, this has nothing to do with it directly. 
But this matter occupies so great a place in the controversy of the 
churches, that we believe the digression is more calculated to clear 
the ground than to encumber it. Yet, on further reflection, it 
seems best to place this chapter in an Appendix at the end of the 
volume, and only to make a reference to it here. 

1 From Malachi, 420 years before Christ, to the Council of Trent, in 1546. 



2 H 



CHAPTER V. 



ON THE APOCEYPHA. 

We shall place the thirty-six propositions relating to it at the end 
of this volume ; because we must hasten to finish here our proofs 
of the inviolable preservation of the entire canon, presenting, for 
this purpose, in relation to the New Testament, a new classs of 
facts, striking, manifestly providential, and extending through 
ages, which attest, with a force that seems to us not less irre- 
sistible, that God has never ceased to stretch over them His in- 
visible, but almighty arm. 



CHAPTER VI 



F1TFH CLASS OF PROOFS. — A NEW ASSEMBLAGE OF FACTS 
RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

520. It will be seen that we can as confidently invoke the testi- 
mony of history for this second portion of the Scriptures as for 
the first ; for the new assemblage of facts will demonstrate to us 
what other facts of the same kind have already so manifestly 
established for the Old Testament — namely, that the faithfulness 
of God, always wakeful, protects the Scriptures that were first 
given to His Church ; and that if, to accomplish this work for 
His first oracles, it chose the Jewish people, thirty-four centuries 
ago, it has set apart, for a similar purpose, for His last oracles, 
the collective body of all the churches, good or bad, throughout 
Christendom. 

Section First, 
the unanimity of all the churches. 
521. The First Fact. — Among the astonishing and enduring 

o O o 

facts which reveal this supreme hand, there is one which sur- 
passes all others. We refer to the marvellous, universal, unshaken 
unanimity with which all the churches in the world have con- 
tinued, for fourteen or fifteen centuries, to present us with one 
and the same collection of twenty-seven books, one and the same 
Greek Testament — its four Gospels, its one-and-twenty epistles, 
its Apocalypse, and Book of the Acts, without the difference of a 
single word, since none of the churches have formed a separate 
school on the question, otherwise so little important, of the 
various readings. 



484 FACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

No doubt, in every age, and in our own times more than ever, 
learned men are to be seen taking the greatest liberties with our 
sacred books, bringing in question their authority, imagining a 
thousand systems about their history, doubting of one, rejecting 
another, and even denying the divine inspiration of the canon 
altogether. But, at all times, these have been isolated persons, 
and instances of individual temerity. 

Never, since the epoch when the canon was definitely closed 
and formed in all the churches, for more than fourteen cen- 
turies, by the free action of men's minds, and under the invisible 
government of Divine Providence — never has any general council, 
any synod, any particular church, Arian or Trinitarian, Romanist 
or Reformed, Free or National, been seen to profess, in its decrees 
or its catechisms, that it rejected any of the books of the New 
Testament, or even to express publicly its doubts respecting any 
of them. And this in the age of Alaric, as in the times of the 
Reformation, or in modern days ; in Europe, as in the East, or as 
in the United States; at Rome, as in that Germany, where, from 
day to day, so many audacious systems are fabricated, and where 
the infidelity of the schools has so sadly prevailed. 

522. Such, then, under the agency of Providence, is the admir- 
able, and, I venture to call it, the divine unanimity of Christen- 
dom on the twenty-seven books of its sacred code. This unanimity 
is continuous, oecumenical, unalterable, and not less persistent 
than that of the Jews for their own canon. It is even a unanimity 
still more astonishing, since the prodigy we admire in that family 
of Israel, which has always guarded its sacred oracles, for thirty- 
four centuries — this same prodigy we have to admire here in all 
the families of nations, who have equally guarded their New 
Testament, in the midst of their most ardent controversies, and 
widest divisions ; they guard it in the rudest churches, in spite of 
their ignorance ; in the most idolatrous, in spite of their tradi- 
tions ; as well as in those who lay the greatest claims to science, 
spite of their sceptical literature, and all the aberrations of their 
men of learning. Finally, this unanimity is more striking, be- 
cause it is found among them only on this point ; while, on every 
other, they set themselves in ardent opposition, church against 
church. 



THE UNANIMITY OF ALL THE CHUKCHE3. 



485 



Seek for any other dogma on which they have been agreed for 
fourteen centuries, on which they are agreed in the present day, 
you will not find it. Seek, again, on the other hand, for any 
point more important, and more fundamental — any point, at the 
same time, more delicate, and more likely to excite discussions 
than this, — you will not find it. And yet it has never been 
possible for the levity of the human mind, for the temerity of 
learning, for the excesses of party spirit, for all the malice of 
Satan, to set them at variance on this single dogma — a dogma 
the most important of all, we say. and the most delicate, the most 
fundamental, and the most likely to excite discussion ! 

Search the whole earth — search from age to age, for a church 
where this disagreement, so easy, so probable, has made its appear- 
ance, — you will not find it. 

523. So evident it is that a secret but almighty hand has inter- 
posed, and that the Head of the Church watches in silence over 
His new oracles, as He watched over the old, — preserving them, 
from age to age, from human foolishness, because He has pro- 
mised to preserve the Church itself for ever from * the gates of 
hell/' 

In this work it has pleased God constantly not to discover His 
holy arm, leaving the churches, under His secret influence, to act 
with a constant feeling of their free-will and independence ; and 
this not only without any sensible pressure of His hand being 
felt by them, but also without any intervention of human authority 
to constrain their will, as we shall soon shew. And thus He has 
led, by His Spirit, their common liberty to this marvellous result, 
in order that, from a multitude of human wills, we should receive, 
during so many ages, only one and the same scripture of the New 
Testament. 

524. But if we cannot help studying and admiring this prodigy 
of the Divine wisdom, which watches over the sacred deposit, 
need we be astonished — we who have seen it at work during 
thirty-three centuries to maintain the people of Israel infusible 
and indestructible in the midst of the nations — and who have seen 
it, during these same centuries, maintain, in the midst of this 
same people, an inflexible will in relation to the Old Testament, — 
need we be astonished if the same hand, always invisible, and 



486 



FACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



always powerful, has also succeeded in making all the Christian 
churches in the world, in spite of their dissensions and back- 
slidings, the incorruptible depositaries of His new oracles ? 

525. No one will think of opposing to this universal testimony 
of the churches the Ethiopian manuscripts discovered by the 
missionary Gobat in the unexplored districts of Abyssinia, nor 
the Syriac manuscripts shewn to Dr Grant, in the high mountains 
of Koordistan, by those interesting Nestorians whom he discovered 
there, and who, for so many ages, have lived apart from the rest 
of the Christian world. "The Apocalypse, and two or three of 
the shorter epistles," he says, but without naming them, were still 
wanting to these isolated Christians, who had not rejected them, 
but were ignorant of them until they were eager to range them- 
selves, with the other Syrian churches, on the side of the universal 
canon. 

526. Let us, then, give the utmost attention to this great fact, 
so manifestly providential — this striking testimony offered to the 
world for so many ages. 

All the Christian Churches throughout the world have 
only one sacred text — the Greek New Testament, with its 
twenty-seven books — such as would be presented to you alike by 
the priests at Moscow, by the ministers at Geneva, by the Propa- 
ganda at Rome, or by the Bible Society in London. " To them 
have been intrusted the oracles of God." 

In whatever age or country I might be living, since the days 
when the canon was completely formed solely by the action of 
men's consciences in the Church,! everywhere and always the 
same Scriptures would be presented to me ; in the times of Theo- 
dosius, as in that of Bonaparte ; among Papists, as among Pro- 
testants; among the Eastern churches, as among those of the 
West during the thousand years of their reciprocal schism. I 
might have asked for it, 1400 years ago, of the Nestorians of 
Asia, as of the Council of Ephesus, by whose orders their books 
were destroyed. I might have addressed myself, three centuries 
later, to 350 Greek bishops, who declared at the Council of Nice 
that the worship of images was " holy, just, and useful/' or to 300 
Latin bishops who, seven years after, condemned it at Frankfort ; 
1 See Propp. 52-54, 312, 527-530. 



THE EXCEPTIONAL LIBERTY IN FORMING THE CANON. 487 

to the Albigenses of the thirteenth century, who were burnt for 
wishing to read it, as well as to the inquisitors, bent on destroying 
them by fire and sword ; to the Bohemians of the fifteenth cen- 
tury, as well as to the fathers of the Council of Constance, who 
put them to death ; to the Eeformers of the sixteenth century, as 
well as to the bishops of France who exterminated them. And 
this very year, if I wished to procure a Greek New Testament, 
pure and complete, I might ask indifferently for the edition of the 
Catholic Scholz, or that of the Protestant Tischendorf, — every- 
where its twenty-seven books complete ! — everywhere this book 
guarded by God as it had been given by Him — everywhere the 
churches conducted infallibly but freely to unity by an invisible 
power — everywhere their unconscious obedience leading them to 
preserve the sacred collection of books, as it had led them at first 
to receive it, — everywhere God giving testimony to the world 
that, " having spoken to the fathers by the prophets, and then to 
their children, by His own Son, by whom also He made the worlds, 
He has never ceased, and never will cease, to watch over His 
Divine Word ; He will preserve the deposit from age to age, until 
He comes to judge the living and the dead by the same Word." 

In explaining at some length this first fact, which takes the 
lead of all the rest, and proclaims to us so loudly the divine cer- 
tainty of the canon, we could not help making some allusions, by 
anticipation, to other circumstances, not less providential, which 
accompanied it. These we must now bring forward and explain 
in their turn. 

Section Second. 

the exceptional liberty which always presided over the 
destinies of the canon. 

527. The Second Fact. — Another characteristic not less provi- 
dential, since, contrary to all probability, it has never ceased to 
reappear from the apostolic times to the blessed Keformation, and 
down to our own day — the altogether exceptional rule of liberty 
under which all the destinies of the canon have been accomplished 
in the Christian Church. At first its original formation, then its 
completion, then at last its perfect and continual preservation. 

528. Whence, but from God, could come that surprising and 



488 



FACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



entire absence of all pressure from without, while this threefold 
process was silently going on in the Church, and leading every- 
where without dispute to the same result? How can it be ex- 
plained, without this agency from above, that every act of autho- 
rity, every synodal decree, and every intervention of the powers 
of the state, has been continually suspended, in reference to the 
most important and yet the most delicate of questions % 

We have already noticed this extraordinary fact ; but it is so 
unique of its kind in the history of the churches, that it has a 
claim on our most serious attention, inasmuch as it attests with 
irresistible force the constant agency of the divine Power in the 
formation, the completion, and the preservation of our sacred 
canon. 

We see here the same Spirit who at first caused our sacred 
books to be written as they are, and who afterwards superintended 
all those second causes which were destined to make their depo- 
sitaries receive them and then guard them during 1 500 years. 

For how, without the agency of this Spirit, can you explain 
that, through so many ages, and in all the Churches of Christendom, 
such freedom had been left to consciences on the very question in 
relation to which we could expect the least — on the dogma from 
which all others would proceed — on the fixation of the eternal 
code — on the judge of controversies — on the dogma of dogmas ? 
How was there so much liberty in relation to this one point when, 
in relation to all others, there was so little ? — when decrees were 
multiplied on objects of the least importance — when all the 
churches of the East and West, jealous (often beyond measure) 
for purity of doctrine, exacted from one another public professions, 
explanations, adhesions, or retractations in regard to all other 
parts of their creed — when they hurled anathemas against the 
least errors, and when, in the second century, Victor, bishop of 
Eome, in the pure days of Irenseus, was seen to excommunicate 
the whole Eastern Church for the single fact of keeping Easter on 
the fourteenth • day of March instead of the following Sunday? 
Were not councils everywhere held against the heretics of the 
day ? — eighty in the fifth century against the Pelagians, Nestorians, 
Eutychians, and Acephali ; eighty-six in the fourth against the 
Arians, Donatists, and Collyredians ; eighteen in the third against 



THE EXCEPTIONAL LIBERTY IN FORMING THE CANON 489 

the Novatianists, Origenists, Sabellians, and Manicheans, — to say 
nothing of those in the second in Asia, in Rome, in Pontus, and 
in Ganl ? 

It is, then, an astonishing fact, and manifestly providential, 
that on this point we can find nowhere in the records of history 
any public constraint, any collective action of bishops, any decree 
of councils, any prescription of emperors, although, from the 
fourth century, they mixed themselves with everything in the 
Church of God. In one word, we cannot find any act of human 
authority which intervened to impose on the churches the accept- 
ance of any sacred code, or to force any individual conscience to 
receive into the canon a single one of the twenty-seven books of 
which at the present day the New Testament is composed. 

Examine, and you will see with a constantly-increasing admira- 
tion that, if this affair has been left, alone among all others, to 
individual inquiry and the regular development of the life of the 
Church, it was in order that we might all recognise in the in- 
variable and wonderful result of this unshackled exercise of men's 
consciences through so many ages, the inscrutable guidance of the 
Holy Spirit. 

529. It is thus that the sacred deposit of the Scriptures has 
been formed without noise, pure, harmonious, and complete, as 
may be seen in chemistry, when, from a confused mixture, a 
regular, transparent, and perfect crystal is deposited at the bottom 
of an undisturbed vessel, in exact accordance with the principles 
of the science. How comes it to pass that every atom, in silent 
obedience, not only to the common law of gravitation, but certain 
inexplicable attractions, should take its proper place with mathe- 
matical precision in this brilliant and mysterious unity? The 
philosopher will point you to the laws of nature, and to the omni- 
potent Creator who maintains them from age to age. Well ! it is 
thus that the Christian from whom you ask how this lasting 
deposit of the sacred books has been made in the Universal 
Church, and how it has been completed, will point you to the 
privileges of the Church, and to the mighty Redeemer who watches 
over these revelations to the end of time. He will call upon you 
to notice with admiration that the. examination of the primitive 
Christians with respect to the second canon lasted nearly three 



490 FACTS EELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

centuries — that it was always carried on, contrary to all expecta- 
tion, under the exceptional and mysterious rule of mutual support 
— that, during all this time, every Christian teacher, perfectly 
independent, could freely publish his doubts. Nor were the 
churches ever known to criminate one another on this question, 
and when at last the crystallisation was completed, the marvellous 
invariableness never ceased for fifteen centuries more, all the 
congregations of Christendom exhibiting a miraculous agreement 
on this single point. 

The crystal, once formed, remains unaltered, and thus this 
assemblage of facts, in the midst of liberty so constant, impresses 
on our sacred collection the dignified and unquestionable character 
of a divine sanction. 

530. When the whole of Christendom, convoked by the voice 
of the Eoman emperors, assembled at Nice in 325, and at Con- 
stantinople in 381, the four Gospels were placed on a throne of 
gold in the midst of the assembly, to indicate the supreme 
authority of the Sacred Word. The first canon of the homolo- 
goumena was then acknowledged by all the fathers by a tacit 
agreement ; but opinions still varied freely among them on the 
subject of the second canon and on the second-first. No one 
raised his voice to complain of this, and the important question 
was reserved. We have shewn above that it was settled almost 
universally from the date of this council by the free assent of 
men's consciences, without any decree relating to it having been 
even proposed in this assembly. And afterwards, towards the 
end of the century, you might hear the Council of Laodicea (in 
364) and of Carthage (in 397) prepare in different ways the 
catalogue of books which might be publicly read in Christian 
assemblies ; you would discover that this was on their part simply 
an arrangement of discipline, since their only object was, as they 
said, to regulate in this way the offices of worship, and not to 
determine dogmatically the number of the inspired Scriptures. 
It is a proof of this (as we have said elsewhere) that not only 
these two catalogues were not identical, and that no one com- 
plained of their not being so, at Carthage, but that, long after 
these two councils, the church teachers continued to exercise 
the most perfect liberty of judgment on this matter, without any 



THE CONTRAST IN THE PROGRESS OF MINDS. 



491 



of them feeling himself bound by these decrees, or ever having 
appealed in their writings to these two assemblies, either to attack 
or to defend any one of the controverted books. 

Unquestionably, in this fact, doubly strange, of a liberty of 
fifteen centuries, combined with an agreement always unchangeable 
among all the Churches, even those most opposed to one another 
in Christendom, every one must recognise a manifest attestation 
of the Providence that watches secretly over the canon. In order 
that no one might fail to perceive it, it has caused all the deposi- 
taries of the Word to arrive at unity, and to maintain it from 
generation to generation, without its being possible to perceive 
in this astonishing harmony the trace of any fallible authority — 
the pressure of any human hand. 

We infer, then, once more, that the God of the holy prophets 
has taken care that His new oracles of the New Testament should 
be intrusted as securely to the new people of God as those of the 
Old Testament were to the Jews. 

Section Third. 

the progress of minds in a way reverse of their 
natural direction. 

531. Third Fact — We have here a general and permanent 
fact, which cannot be explained by the sole action of natural 
causes, and which marks the wonderful agreement to which Pro- 
vidence has led, as to the second canon, all the Churches in the 
world. I refer to the striking contrast which the progress of 
minds offers on this point to what it has always been on other 
subjects. In this affair you see them going, for eighteen centuries, 
in a direction the reverse of what they have always followed when 
left uncontrolled. In all other questions of doctrine, discipline, 
and government, have you not always seen them begin with unity, 
to end, if compulsion has not been used, with divergencies con- 
stantly more marked, and with divisions springing up without 
end? But here, as to the second canon, the most delicate and 
complicated subject of any, with respect to which they were always 
left to the most entire liberty, what do you see ? You see them 
begin with divergence, to end in unity ; and yet no one can tell 



492 FACTS EELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

you by what mysterious mental process this has been accom- 
plished ! "We have shewn before how the primitive churches had 
received, by the nature of things, notions and impressions relative 
to the five short later epistles, and how a reciprocal support left 
them free on this point for several centuries. But what was the 
issue ? All the churches during this process, controlled and in- 
clined without being aware of it by an invisible Power, arrived 
everywhere, after little more than two centuries of expectation 
and research, at a marvellous unanimity ; and having had occa- 
sion, at the council of Nice, to compare their experiences more 
closely, they perceived that they had all arrived at agreement on 
this point. By a slow, calm, silent conveyance, becoming more 
settled every day, they had reached that oecumenical, immovable, 
and humanly inexplicable unanimity, in which we see them all at 
the present day ! 

Section Fourth. 

during the two centuries and a half in which the ancient 
church still hesitated respecting the antilegomena she 
never received a spurious book into the canon. 

532. This is a fourth fact, well fitted to shew the powerful 
Providence that presided at the first formation of our canon, as it 
watched over its destinies from that time. 

In the two first centuries and a half of its existence, the ancient 
Church, already in full possession of its first canon, but more or 
less hesitating in different places respecting the second, held in 
her hands, to examine their titles, not only the five small later 
epistles, but also all the other books, whether authentic, or forged, 
or apocryphal, which were offered for her examination. It is, 
then, very remarkable that, during so long a time, she never 
admitted into the canon any book of which, afterwards, she had 
to acknowledge the spuriousness. It entered into God's design 
that she should examine for a long time, and with constant 
liberty, but never that she should be deceived in her choice. She 
hesitated, more or less, in some of her congregations respecting 
the five books of the second canon. Even after a first and long 
admission of the second-first canon, she listened for a time to 



THE CHURCH AND ITS LITERARY OPPONENTS. 



493 



doubts raised in different places respecting the two canonical 
books of which it is composed ; but never, we repeat, has it ever 
happened to her to admit into the canon any book about which 
she had afterwards to acknowledge herself mistaken. 

This is an invaluable fact, which we have already had occasion 
to notice j 1 and we recommend it to the attention of the reader. 

Section Fifth. 

the astonishing independence of the church in reference 

TO ITS LITERARY OPPONENTS (L'ECOLE) ON THE SUBJECT OF 
THE CANON. 

533. Fifth Fact. — A fifth characteristic, indicating the agency 
of God in this affair, is the astonishing independence which the 
Church has, in every age, shewn of its literary opponents, 
(Vfoole;) and the constant powerlessness of the latter against our 
Scriptures, however eloquent, however learned, however numerous 
their adherents, however bold their negations, and however violent 
their attacks. 

554. Look at the Judaisers and Ebionites in the first century. 

1 Propp. 393-397. If, in the Sixth Chapter of the First Part, we have spoken 
at length about the Apocrypha of the New Testament, our readers must not be 
surprised that we have said nothing of the Sibylline oracles. They did not seem to 
us to be of sufficient importance to occupy our attention. Yet it is not uncommon 
to find in the fathers, especially in Lactantius, mention made of these apocrypha, 
written in Greek verses. What remains we have of them have been published 
by Gallaeus, (1689,) by Cardinal Mai, (1817,) and by C. Alexandre, (1841.) 

According to the investigations of Dr Bleek and Dr F. Lucke, (Einleitung 
in die Offenbaruny Johannis, Bonn., 1832, §§ 10, 14,) the most ancient parts of 
the collection date from the second century before Christ ; the most recent, from 
the fifth of our era. The ruin and succession of empires form their habitual 
theme. Some pieces begin with the fictions of the Greek mythology, and end 
about the epoch of the Ptolemies, by their palpable allusions to the reign of those 
princes. A pagan of Alexandria might be the first author of a forgery, which 
Jewish and Christian interpolators did not hesitate to turn to account. In spite 
of the gross incoherence of such a medley, they hoped to be able to gain over 
unbelievers. But Augustin said, very properly, there is a much surer method of 
convincing pagans, and attracting them to us, for " they will always think that 
these writings were invented by Christians, (a Christianis esse con fictae ;) for this 
reason nothing is more efficacious than to quote the predictions concerning Christ 
contained in the sacred books of the Jews," {Idco ni/iil est Jirmius ad convin- 
cendos quoslibet alienos .... nostrosque faciendos .... quam ut divina ])rae~ 
dicta de Christo ea proferantur, quae in Judaeorum scripta sunt codicibas.) 



494 



FACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



In vain did their doctors set themselves in such numbers against 
all the epistles of Paul ; in vain they equally rejected the two 
books of Luke ; amidst the noise of this fierce opposition, the first 
canon of the New Testament, composed of twenty books, or 
rather, we may say, the sacred collection of the twenty-two homo- 
logoumena, might be seen forming itself peaceably, and with the 
most admirable firmness, in all the churches throughout the 
world, and forming itself for ever. 

535. Observe also, in the second century, the great noise made 
round the Church by the schools of the Gnostics and all their 
sects. Far more formidable than the Ebionites, and far more 
audacious, they attempted to combat our canon in the name of 
science and philosophy ; they opened schools in the most distant 
parts of the empire, and especially in its capital, under the 
Antonines, under Commodus, and under Septimius and Alexander 
Severus, who allowed them all the most entire liberty. They 
drew around them a number of ardent youths, full of enthusiasm 
for their eloquence and boldness. They formed schools, espe- 
cially at Alexandria and Eome, the two centres of philosophy ; — ■ 
Basilides, Isidore, and Carpocrates, in Alexandria; Cerdo, Marcion, 
Valentine, and Theodotus, in Eome. They harassed alike the 
churches in the East and in the West, reverencing none of the 
books of the canon, rejecting here one and there another, wresting 
their meaning, corrupting their text, and associating them with 
spurious writings. But what came to pass after all? Nothing 
was done ; but the God of the Scriptures put forth His gracious 
and powerful hand. He did not constrain human wills ; He did 
not even close by human violence the mouths of the false teachers. 
For the greater final honour of His Word, He allowed them free 
course ; He only deprived them of reputation. And while the 
faithful men of the second and third century entered a powerful 
protest against them — while an Irenaeus, a Clement, a Tertullian, 
an Origen, and a Hippolytus — exposed by learned writings these 
heresies to the vigilance of their flocks, the heresiarchs mutually 
discredited themselves, and their denials of the truth in different 
directions neutralised one another, so that, in spite of the com- 
motion they raised, these schools, after all, exerted but little 
direct influence on the Churches of God. They unhappily led 



THE CBUECH AND ITS LITEEAEY OPPONENTS. 



495 



astray, no doubt, a great number of young men into the paths of 
unbelief and death ; but they did not hinder the work of the Holy 
Spirit within the pale of the churches ; and if they agitated the 
surface, they allowed the Sacred Word to prod ace its effects in 
the depths below, and the judgment of the Church on the canon 
was formed and settled in peace. 

536. Thus, in spite of all that great tumult of the second and 
third century, not only was the truth of the first canon settled, 
better than ever, and settled for ever ; but the universal ac- 
ceptance of the five small later epistles, and the perfect disengage- 
ment of the genuine from the spurious books, were seen to be 
preparing slowly, and without noise, in all the churches of God. 
This acceptance and this disengagement were consummated in the 
first quarter of the fourth century, 1 as we see in metallurgy the 
wonderful separation of silver and gold effected from an alloy of 
the baser metals. 

537. But look again, a thousand years further, at what passed 
in Europe during the agitated age of the Renaissance. At that 
time, the friends of literature and truth, led to a legitimate scepti- 
cism by so many recent discoveries, which had revealed to them 
imposture or error on all sides, in so many traditions hitherto 
held sacred, so many forged books, forged legends, forged de- 
cretals, and forged texts, — at that time, the friends of truth be- 
lieved themselves required to call in question the claims of certain 
books to keep their place in the New Testament. Had they not 
been already obliged, by the authority of God, to eject the apoc- 
ryphal books from the temple of the Old Testament? Was it 
not, then, very natural to fear that, with good intentions, the 
theologians of the time, still imperfectly informed, would believe 
themselves required to recommence the examination of our sacred 
books, and of applying the touchstone even to the gold of the 
canon? Unquestionably, the moment was one full of peril. 
Sacred criticism might easily err, and the cause of the canon 
might seem once more to be seriously compromised. But what 
came to pass? On the contrary, it came forth more firmly 
established than ever from this new mental commotion, and, in 
spite of the labours of a criticism sometimes indiscreet, not a 

1 See Prop. 54, Book I., Chap. VIII., Sect. 2. 



496 



FACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



single church could be found which was then disposed to reject 
any book of the New Testament, or to admit a new one into it. 

538. But what are all these trials, to which the ancient school 
of criticism has subjected our Scriptures during the first, second, 
third, fifteenth, or sixteenth centuries, compared to those reserved 
for them by the learned doctors of modern theology ? We speak 
of the most illustrious universities in Protestant Europe, and 
especially in learned and indefatigable Germany, during the latter 
half of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century. 
One might suppose Cerdo, Marcion, and Basilides risen from their 
graves. The revolt of criticism, for a time, seemed universal ; and 
it might have been apprehended that, before the new investiga- 
tions of science, the greater part of the books in our canon must 
vanish. The youth of the schools were fascinated ; professors the 
least negative shrugged their shoulders at the sight of our simple- 
hearted confidence in the integrity of the ancient text ; and you 
might hear them repeating that it was all over with our canon. 

539. But, to give a more exact and precise idea of this war, let 
us not confine ourselves to general terms. Let us examine more 
closely, for example, what all the Protestant doctors in Germany, 
who, during a hundred years, had constituted themselves the 
guides of youthful theologians, have taught on this point. For 
this purpose we cannot do better than pass rapidly in review 
" the literature of the introductions to the New Testament," con- 
tained in Hertwig's Tables, 1 published in 1849. Let us ask, 
then, what all these guides respecting the canon, all these intro- 
ducers (introducteurs) of the German youth to this sacred study, 
from the time when John David Michaelis was appointed pro- 
fessor in the University of Gottingen, in 1751, and Solomon 
Semler, in Halle, in 1760, to our own days — Michaelis, Sender, 
Eichhorn, Hug, Haenlein, Schmidt, Feilmoser, Bertholdt, De 
Wette, Guericke, Scholt, Credner, Neudecker, Reuss, Baur, 
Schwegler, — I only pass over in this list Hug and Feilmoser, be- 
cause they are Roman Catholics, and Haenlein, because Hertwig, 
who never cites him, has placed this remark against his name — ■ 
" Of little importance." 

1 Literatur der Einleitungswissenschaft. Ta'bellen zur Einleltung ins Neue 
Testament. Berlin, 1849. 



GEKMAN INTRODUCTIONS TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 497 

540. What, then, is the result of the studies of these coryphaei 
in German science during a hundred years ? They have all, with- 
out exception, attacked the canon, yet without coming to any 
agreement on the points assailed ; one receiving what the other 
rejects. 1 

I ask, then, what would have become of our sacred canon, such 
as God has maintained in all the churches throughout the world 
for 1400 years, if it had been abandoned, during the course of the 
last hundred years, to any conclave of German sceince ? Let us 
go over the long list of these " introducers." 

541. (1.) The most ancient, and, perhaps, the most illustrious, 
John David Michaelis, 2 professor at Gottingen for forty years, 
expressed doubts of the canonical value of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, (vol. iv., p. 248,) of the Epistle of James, (p. 302,) of the 
Epistle of Jude, (p. 418,) and of the Apocalypse, (p. 506.) 

(2.) Solomon Semler, in 1757, in his Apparatus ad Liber alem 
iV. T. Interpretationem, traced the road of rationalism for his 
age. At the same time, he denied the authenticity of many books 
of our canon ; among others, of the Apocalypse, (1769,) and of 
the Epistle to the Hebrews. He made three epistles of the 
second to the Corinthians. 

(3.) John Gottfried Eichhorn, professor at Gottingen, from 1804 
to ] 827, denied, in his Introduction, the authenticity of the two 
first chapters of Luke's Gospel, the two last chapters of the 
Epistle to the Eomans, the First and Second Epistle of Peter, the 
two Epistles to Timothy, and the Epistle to Titus. 

(4.) Christian Schmidt, in 1804, in his Historical and Critical 
Introduction to the New Testament? attached himself to the 
school of Semler. He denied the authenticity of the Second 

1 I Qught not to except from this statement the respected Guericke; be- 
cause, in his Bcitraye, he denied the authenticity of the Second Epistle of 
Peter, though he afterwards nobly retracted this opinion. It is gratifying to 
read the beautiful expressions at the end of his preface. It required courage thus 
to return to the ancient truth. The author, in his first work, applied himself to 
the laborious task of combating De Wette's Lehr/juch. In the last, he refutes what 
has been called the new Tubingen school. 

2 Einleitung in die gottlichen Schriften der Neuen Bundes, Gottingen, 1788. 
Translated by Dr Herbert Marsh. 

3 Giessen, 1804, 1805. 

2i 



498 



FACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



Epistle of Peter, the First Epistle to Timothy, of the two first 
chapters of Luke's Gospel, and of the Second Epistle to the 
Thessalonians. 

(5.) Leonhardt Bertholdt, in 1826, 1 doubted of the Second 
Epistle of Peter, like Ullman and Olshausen ; but, like them, he 
did not reject it. 

(6.) W. if. Leberecht de Wette. This illustrious and learned 
professor of Bale, so faithful an interpreter in his admirable 
translation of the Scriptures — so exact in his expositions, and so 
rich in his materials, is, neverthless, among the learned men who 
have expressed most doubts respecting the canon. He has ex- 
pressed them on the authenticity of the Gospels of Matthew and 
Luke, of the Acts of the Apostles, of the First and Second Epistles 
of Peter, of the Epistle to the Hebrews, of the Epistles to Timothy, 
of the Epistle to the Ephesians, and of the Apocalypse. 2 

(7.) Ferdinand GuericJce? in 1828 and in 1843, had expressed, 
in his Beitrage, like Bertholdt, doubts on the authenticity of the 

1 Historische Brit., Einleitung in die Schriften des N. T., 1826. 2 vols. 

2 I do not here speak of his innumerable negations on the Old Testament, 
(Lehrbuch der Einl. in die Bucher des A. T. Funfte Ausgabe, Berlin, 1840.) A3 
to the Pentateuch, it has, according to him, many indications of popular legends, 
(§ 146 ;) the miracles did not occur as they are narrated, (§ 145 ;) Deuteronomy 
and Numbers present contradictions to the preceding books ; Genesis was written 
between the time of David and that of Joram ; Leviticus betrays the epoch of the 
captivity of the ten tribes, and Deuteronomy that of Josiah, (§ 160 ;) the opinion 
expressed in the New Testament, that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch, 
is of no value for criticism, (§ 163 ;) as to the book of Joshua, its recitals have a 
mythological character, (§ 166;) as to the book of Judges, it was compiled long 
after that of Joshua, (§ 175 ;) as to the book of Kings, it is more a moral poem 
than a historical narrative, (§184;) as to the books of Chronicles, they are com- 
piled in a spirit of partiality to the priesthood, (§ 192 ;) as to the Book of Ruth, it 
is posterior to the epoch of David, (§ 194;) as to Isaiah, the twenty-six last 
chapters cannot be authentic, (§ 208;) as to Jeremiah, many passages in the book 
could not have been written by him, (§ 216 ;) as to Ezehiel, many of the pro- 
phecies it contains are only literary productions, (§ 223;) as to the history of 
Jonah, it is borrowed from a popular tradition, (§ 229 ;) as to Daniel, he was not 
the author of the book that bears his name ; and that book, which has some re- 
lation to that of the Maccabees and the Sibylline books, is of the age of Antiochus 
Epiphanes, (§ 255 ;) as to the Psalms, many of them are only simple imitations, 
(§ 270 ;) and as to the Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, and the Proverbs, probably 
Solomon was not the author. Lastly, as to Job, it is a production of the cap- 
tivity, (§ 291.) 

3 Beitrage zur histor. krit. Einleitung ins N. T. Halle, 1828. Leipzig, 1843. 



GERMAN INTRODUCTIONS TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 499 



Second Epistle of Peter ; but in his new Introduction, of the date 
1854,1 he has explicitly retracted them. 2 

(8.) Augustus Schott, in 1830, 3 in his Isagogue, denies the 
authenticity of the Apocalypse, of the end of the Gospel of Mark, 
(xvi. 9-20,) of the Epistle of James, and of the Epistles to Timothy 
and Titus, which he attributes to Luke. 4 

(9.) A ugustus Credner. in his Introduction, published at Halle 
in 1836, adopted the principles of De Wette, and pursued the 
same course. "The attacks of Credner and the new Tubingen 
school against the authenticity of Mark/' says Guericke, 5 "result 
from a hypercriticism, without a historical foundation." He also 
denies the authenticity of the two epistles to Timothy, of the 
Apocalypse, and of the Second Epistle of Peter. 

(10.) Gottlieb Neudecker, who published his Introduction in 
1840, 6 follows in Credner's footsteps, and denies the authenticity 
of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews," and of the Second Epistle of Peter. 8 

(11.) Edward Reuss, professor of theology at Strasburg, who 
lately published (1853) at Brunswick a History of the Holy 
Scriptures? of which the first edition appeared at Halle in 1842, 
also published, in 1840, An Introduction to the Gospel of John. 
The pretended Gospel of Matthew (he says) is taken in part from 
the Hebrew original, which contained the discourses (not the 
facts) reported in the actual Gospel. That of Mark is a revision 
of a true Gospel, and as to those which are called Luke's and 
John's, we have no assurance that Luke wrote the one or John 
the other. The narrative of Paul's journeys is by another hand 

1 Gesamuitgeschichte des N. T. Leipzig, 1854. 

2 " Den ich hiemit wiederholt retractire," p. 483. 

3 Isagogue Hirftorico-crit. in Lib. Nov. Fied. Jena, 1S30. 

4 Guericke, § 24, p. 396, names also Schott as having adopted Eichhorn'a 
hypothesis, that the Pastoral Epistles were composed after Paul's death. 

5 Gesammtgeschichte des N. T., 1854, (2d ed.,) p. 147. 

6 Lehrbuch der historisch kritischer Einleitung. Leipzig, 1840. 

7 That is, he believes it to have been written by a Jewish Christian of Alex- 
andria versed in the philosophy of Philo. 

8 Hertwig, Introd. p. 2, without taking any other notice of Neudecker, simply 
says, " Steht ganz auf Credner's Schultem." But see in the original work, 
Matthew, § 27; Mark, § 32; 2 Peter, § 134; Hebrews, § 114. 

9 Die Geschichte der heiligen Schriften. Brunsw., 1853. 3d. ed., 1860. 



500 



FACTS EELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



than the rest of the Book of Acts ; and in the Gospel called John's 
the sentiments attributed to Jesus belong as to their form to the 
compiler, who only makes use of Him to propagate his personal 
views. These are, together with those of James and Paul, opposite 
types of Christian thought. He admits a Johannean Theology 
by the side of a Jewish- Christian and a Pauline Theology. 1 
He strove equally between the Jewish Christianity of James, and 
the liberal Christianity of Paul. As to the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
its tendency is Jewish- Alexandrine, and the idea it expresses on 
the priesthood of Jesus is not that of Paul. The Second Epistle 
of Peter is long after Peter's time, and as to the First, the part 
which Peter took in it cannot be established. The authenticity of 
the Second and Third Epistles of John is uncertain, while the 
Apocalypse, which is not by him, is only a poetic representation 
of the hopes of the persecuted Church, and "confines itself en- 
tirely within the circle of the concrete and material hopes of the 
synagogue." 

(12, ]3.) Christian Baur, in 1845 and 1847, and Schwegler 
in 1846, both doctors of the new Tubingen school, against which 
Guericke has so honourably set himself, have both published 
Introductions ; the former, in 1845, on St Paul, under the title 
of Critical Inquiries on the Canonical Epistles ; 2 the latter, in 
1846, under the title of The Post-apostolic Age$ These doctors 
and their adherents have pushed their attacks much further than 
any other school in Germany in our day. In their eyes the 
Gospels are documents without authority, and yet contradictory 
documents, which aim at propagating the divergent doctrines of 
their respective authors. They both reject St Paul's three Pastoral 
Epistles and his Epistle to the Philippians, which belonged in its 
tendency to the pretended John, whose Gospel Schwegler attri- 

1 Reuss is not mentioned by Hertwig, except in p. 2, in the list of authors of 
Introductions. But we believe that we have correctly expressed his views, 
according to his writings. See §§ 92, 196 on Matthew, § 189 on Mark, § 211 on 
Luke, §§ 219, 226, 229, on John. Theologie Chretienne au Siecle Apostolique, liv. 
v., ch. ii., xvii. On the Epistle to the Hebrews, § 151; on 1 Peter, § 149; on 
2 Peter, § 255; on James, Theol. Chret., liv. vi., ch. 4; on the Apocalypse, § 161. 

2 Paulus, der Apostel Jesu Christi. Stuttgard, 1845. Kritische Untersuchungen 
iiber die kanonischen Evangelien. Tubingen, 1847. 

3 Das nachapostol. Zeitalter. Tubingen, 1846. 



GERMAN INTRODUCTIONS TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 501 

butes to Montanisin. Baur calls in question too the two Epistles 
to the Thessalonians the Epistle to Philemon and the two last 
chapters of the Epistle to the Bomans. Schwegler considers the 
Epistle of James to have been composed late in the second century, 
and denies the authenticity of that of Jude, as well as of that to 
the Hebrews. Both reject the Epistle to the Colossians, and 
place the First Epistle of Peter in the second century, as being a 
production designed to reconcile the respective partisans of the 
two apostles. This school recognises as authentic, among Paul's 
epistles, only the Epistle to the Eomans, (curtailed of the two 
last chapters,) the two Epistles to the Corinthians, and the Epistle 
to the Galatians ; because the others do not bear traces sufficiently 
clear of the opposition which must exist between the respective 
theories of Peter and of Paul. 

542. Such, then, has been the voice of the leaders of theological 
science for a century among the Germans. There is not one book 
of the New Testament, the Epistles to the Corinthians and to the 
Galatians excepted, which their Introductions have not attacked ; 
as there is not one of these guides, unless, perhaps, Haenlein, who 
has not in his turn lifted up his voice against some part of the 
canon. 

Against Matthew— SoXmltz, (1814;) Schleiermacher, (1832;) 
Schneckenburger, (1832;) Liicke, (1832;) Neudecker, (1840;) 
De Wette, (1848;) Eeuss, (1853;) and we may perhaps add 
Neander, (Life of Jesus.) 

Against M ark — Neudecker, (1840;) Credner, (1836;) Schwegler, 
(1846;) Eeuss, (1843;) and others. 

Against Luke — Schmidt, (1804;) Eichhorn, (1827;) Schleier- 
macher, (1832;) De Wette, (1818, 1834;) Baur, (1845-1847;) 
and others. 

Against Jb/m— Vogel, (1801 ;) Cludius, (1808;) Bretsclmeider, 
(1820;) De Wette, (1830, 1834;) Schwegler, (1840;) and others. 

Against the Acts— Be Wette, (1818;) Credner, (183G;) Baur, 
(1845;) Schwegler, (1846;) Eeuss, (1853;) and others. 

Against the Epistle to the Romans — (the two last chapters) 
— Semler, (1767;) Eichhorn, (1810;) Schultz, (1824;) Baur, 
(1845.) 

Against the Epistles to the Corinthians — the unity only lias 



502 FACTS EELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

been denied. Sender (1767) makes several epistles of the second ; 
Paulus makes three, and Michel Weber makes two, (1798, 1806.) 

Against the Epistle to the Philippians — Schrader, (1830,) 
against the chapters iii., iv. 9 ; Baur, (1845 ;) Schwegler, (1846.) 

Against the Epistle to the Ephesians — De Wette, (1818;) 
Baur, (1845 ;) Schwegler, (1846,) of the Tubingen school. 

Against the Epistle to the Colossians — Mayerhoff, (1838 ;) 
Baur, (1845 ;) Schwegler, (1846.) 

Against the First Epistle to the Thessalonians — Baur, (1845- 
1847.) 

Against the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians — Schmidt, 
(1804, 1805;) De Wette, l (1818;) Baur, (1845, 1847.) 

Against the First Epistle to Timothy — Schleiermacher, (1807 ;) 
Eichhorn, (1812 ;) De Wette, (1826 ;) Schott, (1830 ;) Neander, 
(1832 ;) Credner, (1836;) Baur, (1845;) Schwegler, (1846.) 

Against the Second Epistle to Timothy — Eichhorn, (1812;) 
De Wette, (1826 ;) Credner, (1836 ;) Baur, (1845 ;) Schwegler, 
(1846.) 

Against the Epistle to Titus — Eichhorn, (1812;) De Wette, 
(1826;) Baur, (1845;) Schwegler, (1846.) 

Against the Epistle to Philemon — Baur, (1845.) 

Against the Epistle to the Hebrews — Semler, (1767 ;) Schulz, 
(1818;) De Wette, (1826;) Schwegler, (1846;) and others. 

Against the Epistle of James — De Wette, (1826 ;) Schott, 
(1830;) Kern, (1835;) Schwegler, (1846.) 

Against the First Epistle of Peter — Cludius, (1808 ;) Eichhorn, 
(1812,) believes it was digested by Mark; Schwegler, (1846,) and 
the Tubingen school, reckon this epistle among the productions of 
the second century, designed to reconcile the partisans of Peter 
and of Paul; De Wette, (1818,) and Eeuss, (1853,) think it not 
to be in harmony with the history or character of Peter. 

Against the Second Epistle of Peter — Schmidt, (1804 ;) Eich- 
horn, (1812), Olshausen, (1822 ;) Ullman, against the second and 
third chapters, (1821 ;) Bertholdt, against the second chapter, 
(1826 ;) Guericke, (1828 ;) De Wette, (1818 ;) Mayerhoff, (1835 ;) 
Credner, (1836;) Neudecker, (1840;) Huther, (1852;) Eeuss, 

1 In the latter days of his life he has defended it in his commentary on 2 Thess. 
Introd., pp. 2, 3. 



GEE MAN ENTEODUCTIONS TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 503 

(1853.) 1 But Guericke has explicitly retracted the doubts he at 
first expressed. 

Against the First Epistle of John — Lange, (1797 ;) Cludius, 
(1808;) Bretschneider, (1820,) 2 see in it Docetic notions, and 
attribute this epistle, and the following ones, to John the Pres- 
byter. 

Against the two short Epistles of John — Paulus, (1829,) 3 and 
Credner, (1836,) believe the author to be a different person from 
the apostle. 

Against the Epistle of Jude — Dahl, (1807 ;) Schwegler, (18^6 ;) 
and others. 

Against the A pocalypse — Sender, (1771;) Lange, (1797;) and 
Cludius, (1808;) De Wette, (1818;) Bretschneider, (1820;) 
Ewald, (1828;) Schott, (1830;) Credner, (1836;) Neander,4 
Lucke, (1852;) Reuss, (1853;) Diesterdick, (I860.) 

5-13. I ask now, whether it was not to be expected that, at the 
voice of all these masters of scientific inquiry, issuing from these 
influential universities, many persons would come forward to 
request and obtain from the Churches a severe revision of the 
canon ? For more than a hundred years there had been publicly 
resounding in the ears of the German nation so many bold nega- 
tions, so many fantastic hypotheses, so many arbitrary systems, so 
many doubts, so many contemptuous accusations against this or 
the other book of the New Testament, against their authenticity, 
against their harmony, against their infallibility, against their 
wisdom — what do I say ? — against their veracity ! . . . . Was it 
not to be expected that, in the course of this long period, and after 
all the labours of these learned men, many persons would be 
heard, in different places, among their innumerable disciples, who, 
in their turn, had become pastors of all the German congregations, 
who would ask for the publication of revised New Testaments, as, 
elsewhere, the Old Testament, freed from its apocryphal books, 

1 Geschichte der heiligen Schriftcn, §§ 2G9 and 1G1. 

a Probabilia de Evangelic et Epistolarum Indole, Lips., 1820, p. 166. 

3 Die drei Lehrbriefe von Johannes, p. 260, (Heidelb., 1829.) 

4 In his Geschichte der Pflanznng und Leitung der christlichen Kircho, 
(2 vols., 4th ed., Hamburg, 1847,)— History of the Planting and Training of the 
Christian Church. Translated by J. E. llylaud. 2 vols. London, 1851, (Bohn.) 
Vol. i., p. 396. 



504 



FACTS EELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



lias been published with so much zeal and unanimity? I ask, 
what would become of the canon of the New Testament in the 
hands — I do not say of Semler, of De Wette, of Schwegler, of the 
Tubingen school, — but in the hands of Michaelis, or Schleier- 
macher, or Eeuss, or even of Neander ? 

544. And, consequently, I ask, is it not deserving of admira- 
tion, not only to behold our Testament, with its twenty-seven 
books, coming out of its long probation scathless, entire, and 
fixed more firmly in all our churches ; but that, precisely at the 
time when the Holy Scriptures have been most rudely assailed in 
our seats of learning, the Lord has been pleased to magnify them 
more than ever, not only in Germany, but to the very ends of the 
earth ! 

Is it not in this very age, when scholars and critics have so 
fiercely attacked the Bible, that the Scriptures have been honoured 
and glorified, more than in any other, by the great deeds they 
have accomplished, the conversions they have effected, the souls 
they have renewed, the barbarous nations they have been the 
instruments of raising to civilisation and the Christian life ? Do 
you not see powerful societies formed among all Protestant na- 
tions to translate the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament, and 
the twenty-seven of the New, into all the languages spoken under 
the sun ; to place them within reach of all ranks, high and low ; 
and to send them across all seas, to the farthest parts of the 
world ? And has it not been, during this same period, that all 
our churches have witnessed other associations, equally powerful, 
springing up by hundreds, to proclaim this same Word, with its 
sixty-six books, among all nations, even the least known ; to send 
ministers and missionaries to teach it in churches and schools, in 
private houses, and in streets ? 

May it not be said, that if the nineteenth century, to the middle 
of which we have arrived, ought to be designated in the history of 
human learning (Vhistoire de Vecole) as the age specially of 
rationalism, and of attacks on the canon, this same nineteenth 
century ought ever to be admired in the Church of the future, 
and designated specially the age of missions, and of the Bible? 

Never, since the days of the apostles, have so many missions 
carried the gospel far and wide, and never has humanity beheld a 



TRIUMPHS OF THE CANON. 



505 



spectacle so grand and catholic, and withal so simple, pacific, and 
powerful, as that astonishing Bible Society, which, in Europe and 
America, has achieved, in fifty-six years, incomparable wonders. 
It has covered the whole earth with Bibles. It has risen noise- 
lessly, like the sun, to pour on the world a flood of light. It 
publishes and circulates only one book ; but that book it publishes 
and circulates in all languages spoken by men. It desires to leave 
not a nation under heaven destitute of it ; it has translated it into 
158 languages; it has already given it to tribes who had never 
before known a written language ; and thus it continues to spread 
peacefully over the whole earth, from Labrador to Terra del 
Fuego, and China, by millions, the Old Testament of God, with- 
out any Apocrypha, and the New Testament of God, consisting of 
twenty-seven inspired books ; holding forth its fraternal hand to 
all missionaries to spread everywhere with them the name of that 
Saviour to whom the whole earth is destined to belong. 

Say, ye men of Christian benevolence, ye men of faith, if the 
contrast of the apparent triumphs of critical science, taking to 
pieces the Sacred Volume, book by book, bit by bit, and the real 
triumphs of religion, circulating it at the same time with so much 
reverence and love over the whole habitable globe — say, if this 
contrast is not greatly to the glory of God, and of His sacred 
canon. Say, if you do not recognise in it that Jesus Christ 
reigns at the right hand of the Father, and that He still watches 
over His Word, as in the clays when He gave it. Say, if you do 
not see in these striking facts the manifest accomplishment of 
what John beheld in Patmos — " The angel flying in the midst of 
heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to them that 
dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, 
and people," (Rev. xiv. G.) 

Never has anything like this been seen on earth ! 

545. But in this general movement of return to the Scriptures 
and to the truth of God, do not imagine that Germany herself has 
remained behind. On the contrary, see pious pastors resettled on 
the basis of faith, preaching with zeal to their roused and sympa- 
thising flocks the word of grace. See in how many places the 
mists of rationalism, which had so long obscured the German soil, 
have vanished before the rays of the Sun of righteousness, and 



« 



506 FACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

allowed us to admire the dawnings of a beautiful day. See, while 
so many students have quitted the universities full of prejudices 
against this or the other of our sacred books, — see a multitude 
of young servants of God, wholly devoted to Jesus Christ, issuing 
from the institutions of Bremen, Leipsic, Dresden, Berlin, and 
Hermansberg, who, bidding farewell to their fatherland, have 
sailed from the ports of Germany with the book of God in their 
hands, to preach it amidst the snows of Greenland, or on the 
burning soil of the Antilles, China, and India. Look only at the 
Missionary Society at Bale pursuing its labours for fifty-four years, 
lending its noble labourers to other societies in England, Holland, 
and the north of Germany, while it maintains its own missionaries 
in the Indian stations of Canara, the Mahrattas, and Malabar, in 
towns of Africa almost unknown to geography, and in the Chinese 
stations of Hong-Kong and Canton. 

I have, then, reason to say that if the New Testament with its 
twenty-seven books has never been so ill-treated before in the 
schools of human learning, never has it been so exalted by the 
piety of the churches, and the blessing of God. Human learning 
has thrown it into the lions' den, but it has come forth like Daniel 
on whom " no hurt was found ; " it has been thrown into the fiery 
furnace, but it has come forth like the three Hebrew youths, 
"upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was a hair of their 
head singed." It has suffered no harm ; the smell of fire has not 
passed upon it ; the flames have only consumed the bonds with 
which it was bound, and " the form of the Son of God may be 
seen walking with it in the midst of the flames/' Truly, Lord, 
wonderful are Thy ways ; and when to our weak and short sight 
Thy Word appears weak, it is then strong, and performs its mighty 
works. 

Let us, then, acknowledge that the same God of the Scriptures, 
who watched over the canon for so many ages, has protected it 
more than ever in the age that has just expired. 

546. Yet, before concluding about the fortunes of the Holy 
Book in Germany, that interesting and noble country of intellec- 
tual labour and erudition, it is needful I should say, that if in this 
land of literary freedom criticism has given scope to all its worse 
fancies, and if there is not one of our twenty- seven books which it 



TEITJMPHS OF THE CANON. 



507 



has not attacked, there is not one which the same science has not 
defended. Tor every book there has been a host of learned men 
on one side, and a host on the other. It is not science that has 
formed the canon, nor can science alter it ; but it can at least con- 
tribute powerfully to defend it. I might pass under review those 
men of science who, in the schools of Germany, defend the differ- 
ent parts of the canon which others assail. By the side of Neander 
disputing the Apocalypse, and of the learned men such as Semler, 
Schott, Ewald, De Wette, Eeuss, or Credner, who vied in attacking 
it, I could name its numerous advocates — Storr, Haulein, Hartwig, 
Luderwald, Lange, Eichhorn himself, Schwegier, Bertholdt, Haver- 
nick, (1834,) Ebrard, (1845,) Olshausen, Hengstenberg, Guericke, 
(1854.) By the side of Schmidt, Eichhorn, De Wette, Credner, 
Mayerhoff, attacking the Second Epistle of Peter, I could name 
Pott, Augusti, Thiersch, Dietlein, and Guericke who defend it. I 
could name Storr, Meyer, Paulus, Olshausen, Gelpke, Stendel, who 
defend the Epistle to the Hebrews ; Storr, Gabler, and even Eich- 
horn, and Credner, as well as Guericke, who defend the Epistle of 
James. 

But, if we have admired that manifest Providence which among 
Protestants, with all their irreverent freedom, has not ceased to 
preserve in its integrity the volume of the New Testament, we 
shall receive testimonies of the same Providence no less striking, if 
we proceed to consider the course of things in the Church of 
Rome. 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE ATTEMPTS OF THE CHURCH OF ROME AGAINST THE SCRIPTURES, 
COMPARED WITH HER RESERVE TOWARDS THE CANON OF THE 
NEW TESTAMENT, STRONGLY ATTEST THE DIVINE AGENCY BY 
A NOVEL CLASS OF FACTS. 

547. Sixth Fact — We may assert that we shall gain a still more 
powerful proof than the preceding, from these endeavours of Rome, 
if we view them in connexion with her constant blamelessness in 
reference to the canon and the Greek text of the New Testa- 
ment. 

But here we wish our task and design to be clearly understood. 
We are writing this work simply in defence of the Sacred Volume, 
the common treasure of all the Churches under heaven, since all 
have absolutely the same collection. It is, then, their cause alto- 
gether that we have taken in hand, and it has not been our intention 
to enter into direct controversy. It was not without reluctance, 
and only yielding to the necessities of our argument, that in the 
foregoing chapter we brought forward the faults of Protestants, in 
order to prove the guardianship of Providence over the canon ; and 
in the same spirit, and yielding to the same necessities, we are led 
to dwell, in the following pages, upon the still greater dangers 
among the followers of the Pope, which the sacred canon has, 
through Divine aid escaped. This must be borne in mind while 
listening to what we may say of the errors of the Church of Rome 
in reference to the Scriptures. We are led to do so by the course 
of our argument, and we might have said much more upon that 
subject. 

548. The negations of Protestant theologians have just caused 



THE ATTEMPTS OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



509 



us to admire the providence of God, in the noble unanimity of all 
the Churches throughout the world in maintaining the canon for 
1500 years; but when we turn to the theologians of Koine, the 
same sentiments of admiration will be excited, and in a much 
higher decree. 

Observe their incessant antipathies, and attempts of every kind 
against the Scriptures through a long succession of ages, — in what 
rank they have placed them, — what human traditions they have 
placed above them, — in how many ways they have contradicted 
them, — what insufficiency and injurious effects they have attri- 
buted to them. Observe what interpretations they have imposed 
upon them, — what impure persons they have constituted to be their 
judges, — what outrageous laws have been made to represent them 
as dangerous books. Observe what apprehension has been shewn 
at their circulation, — what care has been taken to prevent their 
being read, — what sanguinary laws have been enacted against pious 
persons convicted of the crime of vending them, — what orders to 
give them up, — what prohibitions of absolution to those who 
refused ! Lastly, observe what solemn denunciations of all the 
later Popes, even in this nineteenth century, against those who 
circulate, and those who receive them. 1 Most assuredly, if you 
attentively consider the whole series of these facts, you will be 
forced devoutly to acknowledge, that God must have interposed 
His powerful hand in this matter, to have sheltered the collection 
of His twenty-seven books from every attack ; and to have brought 
it about, that the Church which calls itself the sole guardian, 
depositary, and interpreter of a volume so dreaded and so dis- 
credited within its pale, should never have altered the canon, and 
never ceased, like ourselves, to preserve it in unalterable integrity. 
You will notice with admiration, that in all her criminal attempts 
against the oracles of the living God, she has never proposed either 
to take away, or to add any ancient book ; she has never proposed, 
for example, that we should receive the apocryphal Gospel of Peter, 
or any other book in honour of the Virgin Mary, as the apocryphal 
Gospel of Matthew, or that of James, or that of the Nativity ; she 
has never proposed that any of the books should be struck out 

1 Encyclical Letters of Leo XII. in 1824; of Gregory XVI. in 1S32; of Pius 
IX. on his accession. 



510 



FACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



which are most at variance with her tenets ; as, for example, the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, (so directly opposed to her doctrine of the 
mass, and to the sacerdotal character of her priests;) or the 
second Epistle to the Thessalonians, which so clearly predicts her 
idolatry and her fate ; or the Apocalypse of John, so contrary to 
that future which she presents to the Church ; or even other books ; 
though she has often declared in her councils, that "generally 
circulated, the Holy Scriptures would do more harm than good."* 

549. We shall, above all, be struck with this thought, if we ask 
ourselves, how much easier for Eome must the undertaking have 
seemed, to take away any book from the canon, or to add one to it, 
than all that she has taken the liberty of doing against the Holy 
Scriptures. 

Let us pass under review her acts for six or eight centuries ; 
and in contrast with such a picture, her blamelessness in reference 
to the canon will fill you with admiration. 

Section First, 
her dogmas and rites opposed to the scriptures. 

550. In the first place, she began by establishing a system of 
rites and dogmas in such flagrant opposition to the Scriptures, 
that they could not have gained acceptance except in communities 
entirely neglectful of the Holy Word, enslaved to the priests, and 
among whom the imitation of pagan practices, and the shows of 
ancient Eome, had already supplanted a spiritual service. Eorced 
celibacy ; the monastic life ; the worship of paintings or of images ; 
and their incessant miracles ; the sacerdotal office attributed to 
priests and bishops ; the adoption of the altars and costumes of 
pagan Eome — its votive offerings, its pontiffs, its chaplets, its pro- 
cessions, its portable altars, its candles in broad day ; the use of a 
liturgy in an unknown tongue ; the idea of a sacrifice accom- 
plished by the priest, and often repeated ; the idea of another 
expiation than the death of Jesus ; the magical power ascribed to 
the priests ; the invention of the mass, and of the transubstantia- 
tion of the bread and wine at the supper ; the adoration of the 

1 The fourth of the ten rules drawn up by the fathers chosen at the Council of 
Trent, and approved by Pius IV. 



THE UXSCEIPTUKAL DOGMAS AND KITES OF ROME. 511 

metamorphosed bread ; the withholding of the cup from the laity; 
the rule of not celebrating the supper except for money ; this 
same supper performed in honour of the dead ; the masses in 
■which a traffic is carried on between the convents and the priests ; 
the confessional, its mysteries, its interrogatories, its abominable 
impurities, and its still more abominable absolutions. The exter- 
mination of heretics by fire and sword, (puniantiir in ignem ;) 
the cancelling of promises, safeguards, and oaths, when deemed 
contrary to the interests of the Church, (lion quasi juramenta, 
sed quasi perj uria.) The worship of angels and that of the dead ; 
the prayers addressed to them in the Missal ; their power in heaven, 
and their omnipresence on earth, to hear at all times, and in all 
places, the invocations made to them. The distinction of different 
kinds of religious adoration, dulia, latria, and hyperdulia ; then, 
dulia, relative, and latria, (relative by means of images,) after the 
manner of the ancient idolatries. The queenly dignity of a female 
in heaven ; her power above angels ; her resurrection before the 
last day, her exemption from original sin ; the eternal Wisdom 
(of the Book of Proverbs) identified in the Breviary with that 
humble and blessed woman, whom we behold, after the Lord's 
resurrection, praying with the brethren and sisters of the Church, 
(Acts i. 14,) and of whom none of the apostles afterwards say a 
word in any of the one-and-twenty letters which they wrote 
to the churches of God during the first sixty years of Christianity. 
The pagan invention of a purgatory, of an expiatory fire, in which 
horrible sufferings (atrocissimce) 1 are inflicted on believers for 
whom Christ died, and in the torments of which they must suffer for 
their sins during millions of years before they can enter the haven 
of rest ; but with the possibility of coming out of it by means of 
masses said for money, after their death. The domination of 
priests over the Lord's heritage, a domination so forcibly repro- 
bated by St Peter and St John, (1 Peter v. 3; 3 John 9;) 
the pretension that Peter believed himself to be the prince of 
the apostles and Christ's vicegerent ; that this dignity and vicar- 
ship has a successor from age to age ; that a successor has a 
right to rule over all the Churches throughout the world, — a 
successor who is to be in perpetuity a bishop of Italy, because 

1 Bellarmin. 



512 



FACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



Peter, whom we never read of in the Scriptures as having been 
at Rome, presided there twenty-five years — a successor, lastly, 
who, although he has often been one of the worst of men, (by 
the confession even of the doctors and councils of Rome,) 1 will 
ever be a bishop of bishops, and the vicar of Jesus Christ through- 
out the world 

Section Second. 

the infallibility of eome opposed to that of the 
sceiptuees. 

551. In the second place, this Church, to maintain the inviola- 
bility of this whole assemblage of contradictions to the Scriptures, 
has proceeded to take a step against them still more outrageous — 
to arraign their infallibility, and to oppose to it her own. How- 
ever clear the declarations of the written Word may be on any 
doctrine whatever, you must take care not to set them in opposi- 
tion to the teachings of Rome, since she is the sole interpreter, and 
condemns severely all rational exercise of your private judgment 
to understand their meaning. She allows you to receive them 
only in the signification that she has fixed. Even all the priests, 
before they are admitted to consecration, take an oath to interpret 
them only in conformity with the unanimous consent of the fathers, 
(a consent which does not exist, and can no where be found.) " Let 
no one " the Council of Trent says in its third session, " presume to 
force the Scriptures to his own private meaning, contrary to that 
which has been held, and which is still held, by the holy Mother 
Church, whose right it is to judge of the true meaning and inter- 
pretation of the sacred books." It is added, that delinquents will 
be denounced to the Ordinary, and punished according to the law ; 
and, in consequence of this ordinance, the fourteenth article of 
the Credo of Pius IV. ends with these words — "I receive also 

1 To cite only one example among so many others, notice the judgment on 
Pope John XXIII., at the oecumenical Council of Constance in 1415. Tried on 
seventy counts, (all attested and proved,) he was convicted of many murders 
and poisonings, (among others, that of Alexander V., his predecessor,) of many 
adulteries and incests, (among others, with his sister-in-law, and some nuns.) 
" A cloaca of vice," said the Council, " and a mirror of infamy;" Lorente, Hist, des 
Papes, Paris, 1822. Lenfant, Histoire du Cone, de Constance.) 



AVERSION OF EOME TO THE SCEIPTUEES. 



513 



the Holy Scriptures in the sense in which the holy Mother 
Church has held, and still holds them, who alone has the right 
to judge of their true sense, and of their interpretation. I will 
never receive or interpret them excepting in conformity with the 
unanimous consent of the fathers/' 

Section Thied. 

the aveesion of eome to the weitten woed. 

552. In the third place, from this assumption of infallibility, 
there results for the Church of Eome, not only the fatal impossi- 
bility of ever reforming herself, and the necessity of being always 
in error, but, more than all, an instinctive aversion to the oracles 
of God. Hence arises the secret feeling of an organised and per- 
petual state of war between the interpretations of Scripture and 
that Scripture which will never cease to protest against the mean- 
ing she gives it. From this, too, arises the constantly disparaging 
language of the doctors of Eome respecting the written Word 
and its use. When do you hear them, unless among the Jansen- 
ists, (always more or less persecuted,) the Pascals, the Duguets, 
the Quesnels, the Sacys, use the language of Scripture respecting 
the Scripture. " how love I thy law, my God ! I meditate 
therein day and night. It is profitable for instruction, for cor- 
rection, for conviction, for making the man of God ready for every 
good work, and wise unto salvation, through faith in Christ Jesus. 
It enlightens the eyes ; it gives wisdom to the simple. Search 
the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life ; search 
them with care daily, to see if what is preached to you agrees with 
them/' 1 Alas ! instead of this language respecting the Bible — 
language which has been that of pious men in all ages — you see 
them decrying its use, lowering it in the popular estimation, 
speaking of it as obscure, insufficient, and even dangerous. Of 
what use to circulate it among the people? Have they not the 
priests? It is insufficient to instruct, to convince, to correct, to 
make wise unto salvation ; it is not the business of the people to 
examine whether what is preached to them is conformable to 
it. Is not that known beforehand ? " It is obscure," Bellarmin 

1 Ps. xix. 8; cxix. 105, 130; 2 Tim. iii. 15-17; John v. 39; Acts xvii. 11. 

2 K 



514 FACTS BELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

affirms ; 1 "it does not contain everything necessary to salvation," 
he adds ; " it belongs to the Mother Church to decide upon the 
meaning." " It is dangerous," say the Roman councils, " if you 
circulate it indiscriminately ; to read it without permission is a 
mortal sin." " It is exposing one's self, on account of human in- 
firmity, to receive more harm than good," says the Council of 
Trent. 2 " It is made evident by experience," Pius VII. repeats, at 
a later period, in his bull to the Archbishop of Gnesen, 3 "that 
the Holy Scriptures, circulated in the vulgar tongue, have pro- 
duced, through the rashness of men, more evil than good." And 
Pius IX., from the time of his accession, has hastened to repeat 
these deplorable and fatal maxims. 

Section Poueth. 

the anxiety op eome to keep the bible at a distance fbom 
the people, and the people eeom it. 

553. In the fourth place, another attempt of Eome against the 
Scriptures, is the pains it has always taken to keep them at a 
distance from the people, and the people from them ; contriving 
that even the priests do not know them, except by the extracts 
inserted in the Breviary, the Pontifical, and the Missal, and thus 
making them to disappear almost entirely from every country 
where there are no Protestants — from Spain, Portugal, Italy, the 
colonies of America and Asia, Peru, Mexico, Paraguay, Brazil, 
Cuba, the Philippines, and, above all, from Rome, the mother 
city. 4 Alas ! as far as relates to the Holy Scriptures, all these 
countries, by the efforts of this Church, have been reduced to a 
desert, and the Bible has become a strange book — I might say, a 
suspected, a dangerous book. "I have gone through the whole 
city of Rome/' said, a few years ago, a distinguished Englishman, 

1 De Verbo Dei, lib. iii., et lib. iv. 

2 See the bull of Pius IV., at the end of the Council of Trent, act. 14. Sacros 
et CEcum. Concil. Trident., Canones et Decreta. Paris, 1823. 

3 June 29, 1816. 

4 It is striking to read, in the official papers of the British parliament for the 
year of Catholic emancipation, (1829,) the examination of Drs Murray and Doyle, 
(afterwards prelates in Ireland,) on the entire absence of the Bible, in the vulgar 
tongue, in the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal, where they had long resided. 



OPPOSITION OF ROME TO THE SCRIPTURES. 515 

Mr Seymour, " and I have visted all the book-shops of that city, 
even those of second-hand booksellers Not a copy of the Scrip- 
tures ! Everywhere the same answer — E proibito ; mm e per- 
messo ! Only in two places the edition of Martini was offered 
me; but in twenty-four volumes, at the price of 105 francs." 1 

554. But, in the fifth place, this hostility against the Scrip- 
tures has led the Church of Rome much further. " Experience," 
she said, at the Council of Trent, 2 — she said it 317 years later, 
at the Council of Toulouse, — she has repeated it very often in 
our own day, — " Experience has convinced her that the use of 
the Sacred Books, circulated freely in the vulgar tongue among 
the Christian congregations under her jurisdiction, has always been 
her ruin." Observe, therefore, when, in spite of her efforts to keep 
them from the Scriptures, she has seen them apply to their study in 
a spirit of earnest piety ; — as, for example, the Vauclois in the twelfth 
century — the Albigenses in the thirteenth — the Lollards in the 
fourteenth — the Bohemians in the fifteenth — the Reformed Churches 
of Germany, France, England, Switzerland, Scandinavia, Poland, 
Hungary, Italy and Spain in the sixteenth — the Jansenists of 

1 See Seymour, Mornings with the Jesuits at Rome. London, 1849, p. 153. 
Luther tells us that it was at Erfurt, in the libraiy of the university, to which 
he came to be made Master of Arts, that he met, for the first time, with a Bible. 
Excepting the fragments of the Gospels or epistles contained in the Missal, 
scarcely any one read the Word of God; and Luther himself tells us that he had 
never seen the whole of it. " Carlostadt," he adds, " began to read it only when 
he had been doctor for ten years," (Table-talk, vi., 7, quoted by Michelet.) But 
what he tells us there, three centuries and a half ago, has been told us within 
these few years, by one of the most learned priests of Rome, recently converted 
to the gospel, in the same way as Luther, by reading the Bible — the honourable 
M. de Sanctis. Though minister of one of the first parishes in Rome, (the 
Maddalena,) — though a doctor in theology, and universally respected — though a 
theologian of the Inquisition, and examiner of the clergy — though well versed in 
the theology of Thomas Aquinas, he had known the Bible hitherto only by ex- 
tracts, such as were to be met in the services of the churches, and in theological 
works. u A contrivance of the devil to make the priests believe that they read 
the Bible," (he wrote to me,) " is to make them recite every day a part of the 
Breviary, composed of Psalms, and of sentences from the fathers, or the Il ly 
Scriptures. Every day, after the psalm, they read three lessons taken from the 
Bible. These begin with the first chapter of Genesis, and end with the twenty- 
second chapter of the Apocalypse ; so that the greater part of the clergy actually 
believe that they read the Bible through every year. I myself believed it." 

2 The fourth of the ten rules, drawn up by the fathers chosen at the Council, 
on the subject of the prohibited books ; rules approved and published by Pius IV. 



516 



FACTS KELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



France in the seventeenth — the Tuscans and Irish in the nine- 
teenth ; — observe how at once she takes the alarm ; she foresees 
defections ; she trembles for her supremacy ; she utters by turns 
cries of menace and of alarm ; she at last commits the impious 
act, before unheard of, that of interdicting, in the name of Jesus 
Christ, to the disciples of Jesus Christ, the book of Jesus Christ ! 

555. Never, no, never, since the commencement of Christianity, 
— never among all the most audacious sects which have harassed 
the Church of Cod — never among the eighty-eight heresies enu- 
merated by St Augustin, 1 has any one of them, even the most 
impious of the Sabellians, Pelagians, or Arians abstained from ap- 
pealing to the testimony of the Scriptures, and encouraging the 
reading of them — never has any one dared to lift his voice against 
their authority or their universal use. What do I say? Never, 
even before the canon was entirely formed, did the Gnostics, the 
Ebionites, the Valentinians, the Marionites or the Manichaeans, 
who rejected a part of the Scriptures, ever dream of interdicting 
men from reading the books which they themselves held as given 
by God. On the other hand, the great Greek Church, which styles 
herself the orthodox Church of the East, proclaims aloud the duty 
of reading the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, and declares that 
the Bible, being the Word of God, is the sole supreme judge of con- 
troversies in matters of faith. 2 But here, after so many ages you 
see the Church of the Pope the only one in the world to interdict 
Christian pe©ple from reading the Word of God. 

She officially perpetrated this act now more than six centuries 
ago. In 1229, at the Council of Toulouse, held against the Vaudois 
and Albigenses, under Gregory IX., she dared to pass against the 
Scripture the frightful decree of which the following is the fourth 
canon : — " We also prohibit laymen from having the books of the 
Old and the New Testament, unless perhaps any one for devotional 
purposes wishes to possess a Psalter, or Breviary for Divine service, 
or the Hours of the Blessed Virgin. But we forbid them expressly 
from having the books above mentioned translated into the vulgar 

1 Da Haeres., torn, viii., pag. 3, Bened. edit., Paris, 1685. 

2 See Philaretus, (metropolitan of Moscow) in his Tableau Comparatif des Eglises 
d'Orient et d'Occident; Pinkerton's Russia, London 1833, 39th, and following 

pages. 



OPPOSITION OF EOME TO THE SCEIPTUEES. 517 

tongue." (Sed ne praemissos libros habeunt in lingua vulgari 
translatos arctissime prohibemus.) 

556. And that decree which established the Inquisition is re- 
newed one century after another. "The experience of Rome, as 
she herself reiterates, having from age to age convinced her of the 
incompatibility of her existence with the universal use of the 
oracles of God, she has often renewed such edicts under different 
forms. Here, for example, is what she declared in the middle of 
the sixteenth century in the name of the Council of Trent, on the 
fourth of the " rules " drawn up by the Fathers chosen for the 
question of prohibited books : 1 — " Since it is manifest by expeei- 
ekce (cum experimento manifestum sit) that if the Holy Bible 
(si Sacra Biblia) in the vulgar tongue is circulated everywhere 
without distinction, more harm than good will result from it on 
account of the rashness of men, (plus hide, ob hominum temerita- 
tem, detrhnenti quam utilitatis oriri^) whoever shall have the pre- 
sumption to read such Bibles, or to possess them without permis- 
sion, shall be disqualified for receiving absolution of his sins, at 
least till he has previously given up his Bible to the bishop of the 
diocese." 

557. Thus, while in the ancient Church of the three first cen- 
turies, the unhappy men, who for fear of punishment delivered up 
their Bibles to the officers of Pagan Rome, were called Traditores, 
and were refused absolution of their sins, at the present day it 
is an act of piety in the estimation of Papal Rome to deliver them 
up ; while for those who have the presumption to read them or to 
possess them without permission, the absolution of their sins is to 
be refused, and excommunication kept in reserve. 

558. The Church of Rome has pursued this fatal policy with 
increasing hardihood, and, in the eighteenth century, the too 
famous bull, Unigenitus, 2 against Quesnel, received after a long 
contest by all parties of the Roman Church, condemned for ever, 
"as, each of them, false, deceitful, scandalous, pernicious, rash, 

1 De libris prohibiti.s regulae decern per patres a Tridentino Synodo delcctos 
. . . (Sacros et CEcum. Cone. Trid., Paul. III., Jul. Ill, et Pio IV., Pont. Max. 

Celebrati, Canones et Decreta, Paris, 1823.) PiuB IV., in the bull that accom- 
panies these rules, declares that " it is a mortal sin to violate them." 

2 Or the " Constitution of Clement XI. against Quesnel," Sept. 8, 1713. 



518 



FACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



suspected of heresy, savouring of heresy, heretical, impious, blas- 
phemous, the following propositions :" — 

The 79th. " It is useful, at all times, in all places, and for all 
sorts of persons, to study the Scripture, and to know its spirit, 
devotion, and mysteries." 

The 80th. " The obscurity of God's Holy Word is not a reason 
for laymen to dispense with reading it." 

The 84th. " To take the New Testament out of the hands of 
Christians, or to keep it closed from them, by depriving them of 
the means of understanding it, is to close for them the mouth of 
Jesus Christ." 

The 85th. " To interdict Christians the reading of the Holy 
Scriptures, and especially of the Gospels, is to interdict the use of 
light to the children of light, and to make them suffer a species of 
excommunication." 

Again, in the nineteenth century, we have heard the disastrous 
professions of all the last popes, to consecrate their accession to 
the throne by a declaration of hatred against the Bible Societies, 
and the dissemination of the Scriptures ; the Bull of Pius VII., 
addressed, June 29, 1816, to the primate of Poland; the ency- 
clicals of Leo XII, May 3, 1824 ; of Gregory XVI, Aug. 15, 
1832 ; and, lastly, of Pius IX., to the archbishops and bishops of 
Italy, in 1849. "To arrest this pestilence," says Leo XII, (the 
pestilence of the universal dissemination of the vulgar tongue,) 
* to arrest this pestilence, of which the effect is, that, by perverse 
interpretations, the Gospel of Christ is converted into a human 
gospel, or, rather, into a gospel of the devil, our predecessors have 
published many constitutions, tending to shew how very injurious 
this perfidious invention is, both to faith and morals." (Quanto- 
pere fidei et moribus vaferrwium hocce inventum noxium sit.) 

Section Fifth. 

the long and cruel severities of the church of rome in- 
FLICTED ON THOSE WHO WISH TO READ THE SCRIPTURES IN THE 
VULGAR TONGUE. 

559. But this is not all. In her warfare against the Scriptures, 
Rome has gone much further. Here is a sixth feature of her 



SEVERITIES OF THE CHUECH OF EOME. 



519 



hostility. Persuaded that the possession of the Bible, in the 
vulgar tongue, by the people would be her ruin, she has been in 
the practice everywhere, for 600 years, of punishing, first, with 
excommunication, and, when she has the power, with death, all 
those who choose to possess it, or take the liberty of reading it. 

560. You can see, in the great collection of her bulls, 1 those -of 
Honorius III, in 1216; of Innocent IV., in 1243; of Alexan- 
der IV., in 1254; of Urban IV, in 1262; of Clement IV., in 
1265; of Nicholas III., in 1278; of John XXII, in 3 317; of 
Boniface IX, in 1391 ; of Martin V, in 1418 ; of Innocent VIII, 
in 1486; of Julius II, in 1511; of Leo X, in 1520; of Cle- 
ment VII, in 1526; of Paul III, in 1536; of Julius III, in 
1550 ; of Paul IV, in 1550 and 1559. See in " The Acts of the 
Councils," by Labbe and Cossart, 2 the Fourth Lateran Council, 
in 1515; the edict of St Louis, in 1228 ; the Council of Toulouse, 
under Pope Gregory IX, in 1229 ; of Beziers, in 1246 ; of 
Oxford, in 1408; of Constance, in 1415, 1416, and 1418; of 
Sienna, in 1527. 

561. The decree of Toulouse, 1229, as we have already quoted it, 
forbidding to every layman the reading of the Old and the New Tes- 
tament, odious as it is for the audacity of its impiety, is still more 
so for its ferocity ; and this is a seventh feature. It established 
the horrible tribunal of the Inquisition against all the readers of 
the Bible in the vulvar tongue. It was an edict of fire, blood- 
shed, and devastation. In its 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th chapters, it 
ordained the entire destruction of the houses, the humblest places 
of concealment, and even the subterranean retreats of men con- 
victed of possessing the Scriptures ; that they should be pur- 
sued to the forests and caves of the earth ; and that even those 
who harboured them should be severely punished. (" Etiam sint 
domini terrarium soliciti circa inquisitionem haereticorum in 
villis domibus et nemoribus faciendum; et circa hujusmodi 
appensa adjancta seu suhterranea latibula destinenda.") 

562. And do not think that this ferocity against the Scriptures 
was the paroxysm of a day. Pome has kept it up for ages, and 
indulged in it as far as the laws of European nations have pcr- 

1 Magnum Bullarium Romanum, Luxemlmrgi, 1727, (Diblioth. do rAtlicndc.) 

2 Paris, 1671, fol. 16. 



520 



FACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



mitted it. Thousands of martyrs have perished by her hands for 
their attachment to the Holy Word. Her priests, in putting 
them to death, have believed "they did God service," as Jesus 
Christ said, (John xvi. 2.) This persuasion, founded, as they 
said, on a long experience, that the circulation of the Scriptures 
is more powerful against their system of religion than the attacks 
of infidelity, or of philosophy, or of earthly powers have ever been, 
— this persuasion has led them to destroy so great an evil at any 
price, to combat it, for conscience' sake, by fire and sword. And 
you still hear, in the present day, even in France, the journals 
most prized by the Church of Eome, and the most approved re- 
presentatives of her doctrines, loudly defending those infernal 
butcheries. 

Section Sixth. 

the decrees of the church of rome reduce the scriptures 
to a level with traditions. 

563. But Eome has advanced still further against the Holy 
Word. Not satisfied with interdicting the use of it to the people, 
she has sought to degrade it. To be able to contradict it, the 
words of men must be raised to the same level ; and this is what 
the Council of Trent has done. It has put in the same rank as 
the Word of God, the immense, and, to this day, undefined, body 
of human documents to which the name of tradition has been 
given ; this has been so done as to annul the divinity of Holy Writ, 
by recognising, as equally Divine, other innumerable and apocry- 
phal teachings, which annul its eternal authority by attempting to 
share it. There are two ways of denying God — either by lowering 
Him to the rank of the creature, or by elevating the creature to 
His side, and to His throne. This is what the Council of Trent 
has done. 

Look at the first decree of its fourth session — " Seeing (it says) 
that saving truth and the discipline of manners are contained in 
written books, and in unwritten traditions, which, received 
by the apostles from the lips of Jesus Christ, or by the inspiration 
of the Holy Spirit through the succession of time, are come down 
to us — the Council, following the experience of the apostolic 
fathers, receives with the same sentiment of piety, and 



THE SCFJPTUEE3 DEGRADED BY THE CHURCH OF ROME. 521 
reverence, (pari pietatis et reverentiae affectu,) and honour 1 

ALL THE BOOKS OF THE OLD AND THE NEW TESTAMENT, (seeing 

that God was their Author,) and with them the traditions con- 
cerning both faith and manners. 

564?. All Christian Churches protest against this attempt, and 
particularly the great Russo-Greek Church, which terms itself the 
Orthodox and Catholic Church of the East. " This," it says, <( is 
the eighth of the nineteen errors that separate the Roman Church 
from the great Orthodox Church of the East." 2 

Section Seventh. 

the decrees of the church of rome place the scriptures 
below the roman pontiff. 

565. But Rome not only makes the Scriptures descend to her 
own level, but sets herself above them, by constituting herself their 
infallible interpreter and supreme judge, claiming for her decisions, 
even for the most palpably erroneous, the infallibility which be- 
longs to God alone. This is our eighth point. By a bull she has 
publicly classed among the heresies of Luther his having said 
that it was not in the power either of the Church or the Pope to 
establish articles of faith. 3 Tradition is always consulted to 
determine the meaning of the Bible, but the Bible is never 
consulted to give its judgment on tradition. What should we 
lose, then, in the judgment of Rome, if the Bible were everywhere 
abandoned — since the Church has already determined by an 

1 Can. et Dec. Concil. Trident., p. 16; Lipsiae, 1816. 

2 See the work of the late metropolitan Archbishop of Moscow, quoted above, 
(Propp. 475-478.) Eight of these nineteen errors relate to the Scriptures. The 
first which the Archbishop points out is, that in the Latin Church, the Bible is 
held not be a sufficient source of the truths necessary to salvation. The second, 
that the apocryphal books are made part of the canon. The third, that the Scrip- 
tures are asserted to be unintelligible without an interpreter. The fourth, that 
instead of the original text, the Latin version, called the Vulgate, authorised by 
the Council of Trent, is received as the authentic text. The fifth, that the laity 
are forbidden to read the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue. The sixth, that the 
Pope is constituted supreme judge of controversies. The seventh, that the same 
infallibility is given to the decisions of councils as to Jesus Christ. Lastly, the 
eighth is, that unwritten traditions are received with the same reverence as the 
written "Word of God. 

3 The Bull Exsurge of Leo X. in 1520; Council. Harduini, torn, ix., p. 1893. 



522 



FACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



infallible voice all that constitutes the truth — and since her most 
renowned doctors declare that the Scripture is not necessary, that 
it is insufficient, obscure, imperfect, even dangerous for faith and 
manners, the inexhaustible source of disputes and heresies — so 
that to read it without the permission of the priest, is, according 
to the councils, 1 a mortal sin, and the booksellers who vend it 
ought to be severely punished ? 

Section Eighth. 

the power op all these facts united to confirm the 
doctrine of the canon. 

566. Such, then, have always been the increasing attacks of the 
Church of Eome upon the Scriptures, for six or eight hundred 
years. And now, I ask, does not this warfare of eight centuries 
render the blamelessness of Eome as to the text and canon of the 
New Testament admirable, astonishing, and marvellous? And 
this warfare Kome carries on more eagerly than ever, especially 
since the re-establishment of the Jesuits by Pius VII. ; although the 
temporal power of nations no longer seconds it by their laws, and 
the circulation of the Bible all over the world has made so mag- 
nificent a progress ! 

The Scriptures circulated by our societies have been publicly 
inscribed in the list of prohibited books ; they have been denied 
entrance into various countries with far more strictness than the 
works of Diderot or Voltaire ; and the Bible in the vulgar tongue 
is always, for the Papacy, the most dangerous book it has to deal 
with. Listen to the cries of alarm from the four last popes on 
this subject, and you will, see that this ancient and formidable 
power, which still makes the powers of this world tremble, 
trembles itself before the Scriptures laid open in the vulgar 
tongue. It quails at the thought of appearing in public before 
their tribunal. For 1200 years the Scriptures have not been 
allowed to be seen by a priest, excepting under the veil of a dead 
language ; and, in the same way, they have not been allowed to 

1 Peccatorum absolutionem percipere non possifc. {Be libris prohibitis.) Regulge 
Decern per Patres a Tridentina Synodo delectos continuatoc et a Pio IV. compro 
batse. 



ROME IN RELATION TO THE CANON. 523 

be read by the people excepting in fragments, and that in Latin, 
in the Vulgate version of Jerome. 

567. I ask, then, any one who has watched this long hostility 
against the Word — a hostility, as Eome confesses, founded on ex- 
perience, for ages, of its dangerousness — a hostility prolonged for 
eight centuries, — is it not marvellous that, in the midst of all 
these attempts against the Scriptures, that of altering the canon, 
by additions or retrenchments favourable to the doctrines of 
Eome, has never been tried ? 1 Who would not have thought be- 
forehand, that, among all these enterprises against the Scriptures, 
and their circulation, this of altering the canon would be of the 
number ? that the Church of Eome would be glad, for example, to 
be relieved a second time of that Epistle to the Hebrews which is 
so decidedly opposed to the doctrine of the mass ; and of that 
Apocalypse which represents Eome as a Babylon, and so clearly 
predicts her ruin ? or that she should accept some of those apoc- 
ryphal gospels which give glory to the Virgin Mary ? or that she 
should be tempted to grant a place in the canon to the epistle of that 
apostle Clement, as Clement of Alexandria called him, 2 — that im- 
mediate successor of St Peter, as Jerome called him ?3 Truly, the 
hand of God must be acknowledged here in this reverence shewn 
for the canon in the midst of so much contempt and outrage against 
the Scriptures, at a time, too, when the fabrication of forged 
books was so frequent, and the alteration of genuine books was 
not less so, as we shall soon shew. Such an attempt, atrocious 
as it would have been, might have seemed, beforehand, much more 
probable than what has really happened ; and these proceedings 
towards the books of the New Testament, especially in an obscure 

1 " Since the Church has approved the four Gospels," said the monks to Wic- 
kliffe, " she had also the power to reject them, and to admit others. The Church 

sanctions or condemns what she pleases Learn to believe in the Church 

more than in the gospel." — Merle D'Aublf/ne, Reformat., torn, v., p. 108. 

2 'O drrno-ToXos KXrjfxrjs. Stromata, iv., 17, § 107; ed. Klotz, iL, 334. See 
Hefel, Patrum Apost. Opera, Proleg., p. xxviii. Tubing., 1847. 

3 The popes certainly could not have added the epistle of Clement to the New 
Testament in 1345, or 1445, or 1545, because it had been lost in the West, and 
was not recovered till 1628. But this makes it more remarkable, that they should 
have allowed the ancient and memorable relic of a bishop of Rome to be lost, 
when the Eastern bishops held it in such honour that they were pleased to join 
it to the end of the New Testament Sec Tropp. 254-256. 



524 



FACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



age, when the Scriptures were so little known, and so few persons 
knew how to read, must seem much more profitable, and, conse- 
quently, far less improbable than all that has really happened. 
Far less improbable, for instance, than forbidding Christians to 
read or possess the Word of their God ; far less improbable than 
ordering it to be given up to the priests, under pain of excom- 
munication ; far less improbable, especially, than an order to put 
Christians to death, convicted only of the crime of reading or 
possessing it-; far less than the crime of putting the whole body 
of traditions on a level with it ; far less than that of audaciously 
belying it, and publicly placing above it the infallibility of " an 
Italian bishop, or that of some priests assembled in council. And 
yet this act, comparatively so easy, so profitable to the priests, and 
so much to be preferred to all that has been actually done, the 
Church of Home has never committed, nor even, as far as we 
know, ever attempted to commit. And why ? Because there is 
a God who watches over His oracles ; because He guards their 
canon ; because He prevents even the most rebellious Churches 
from laying their hands upon it ; and because He had already pre- 
vented, during 3300 years, in relation to the Old Testament, the 
Jewish people, though almost always unfaithful, from committing 
such an outrage. 

568. Thus the very errors of the Eoman pontiffs, like those of 
Protestant theologians in reference to the Holy Word, have only 
served, in the final result, for its exaltation, and the confirmation 
of its canon. After all these storms of eight hundred years, 
storms which have sometimes deluged the earth, we see Thy Holy 
Word, like Noah's ark, floating above the waters, and advancing 
peacefully through the storms to renovate the world. God has 
lent for a time to the science of the schools all its genius and 
all its licence of action, as to the Church of Eome all . its means of 
violence and all its triumphs, only to furnish believers with two 
great and novel proofs of the divinity of the Scriptures, of the 
Providence that protects them, and of the durability of their canon. 
The schools have revolted against the canon, but in vain ; priests 
have agitated, but in vain ; the laws of all the Latin kingdoms 
have denounced death against those who circulate the Scriptures in 
the vulgar tongue ; pontiffs have launched their bulls ; blood, at 



THE CIRCULATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



525 



their outcries, has flowed like water; more recently, since the 
Trench Eevolution which quenched their thunderbolts, they have 
not ceased to anathematise the Bible societies as a vaferrimitm 
inventum, and as a pest by which, they say, the very foundations 
of religion are undermined. 1 But the Bible, in its integrity, has 
traversed the globe ; the New Testament, with its canon intact and 
complete, has made the tour of the world to spread the gospel of 
grace in one hundred and sixty different languages ; and the great 
society divinely charged with this incomparable mission has just 
accomplished it, and celebrated six years ago its fiftieth anniver- 
sary. Pacific and powerful in its exterior weakness, not having 
received the support of any human government, it has silently 
covered the world ; it has continued to raise its waves as the 
ocean its tides ; and when it was proposed at its jubilee to vote a 
million copies of the New Testament for China, which had just 
been opened to the sacred colporteurs, it hastened to accept the 
magnificent challenge, and took measures to circulate them during 
the year. Certainly as there is a God who has given the Scrip- 
tures, there is a God who watches over the volume that contains 
them and preserves it from age to age. 

1 The words of Pius VIL in his bull of 1S16 against the Bible Society, given at 
Rome June 29, and addressed, as we have said, to the Bishop of Gnesen. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE SEVENTH CLASS OF FACTS — THE PIOUS FRAUDS IN SUPPORT OF 
THE DOCTEINES AND PRETENSIONS OF THE ROMAN PONTIFFS. 

569. There is still another class of facts which more than all 
demands notice, in order to give our argument its greatest force- 
This faithful preservation of the sacred collection, so surprising in 
the bloody hands of the Papacy during the twelve hundred and 
sixty years of its triumphs, will appear to us much more marvel- 
lous when we have studied another permanent feature of its history. 
I refer to its pious frauds — incontestible frauds — frauds enormous, 
official, and innumerable — frauds continued and multiplied during 
thirteen centuries with incessant ardour, to sanction in the eyes of 
the people the doctrines of its schools, and the pretensions of its 
pontiffs. 

False epistles, — false titles, — false acts of councils, — false books 
of the fathers, — false decrees, — false miracles, — false apparitions, 
— false legends ! 

And let us observe, that all these means have been employed 
most frequently in connexion with what Paul calls " a zeal of God/' 
(fffkov Oeov,) Rom. x. 2, and as the actors believed from holy mo- 
tives, because in exalting the Church, according to their idea of it, 
they imagined that they were advancing the salvation of the world, 
and the glory of God. 

570. Certainly, when at the end of thirteen whole centuries of 
pious frauds practised under all forms, you still see the mighty 
colossus of the Roman Church, always carrying in its hands the 
holy and pure collection of the twenty-seven scriptures of the New 
Testament, you cannot help recognising in this marvellous inviola- 
bility, a manifestation of the God of the Scriptures. Certainly 



THE FALSE DECRETALS. 



527 , 



you have here before your eyes a splendid miracle of Providence. 
You see an ingot of silver come out uninjured with all its lustre 
from an immersion of ages in a corrosive acid, while every other 
substance, even gold, has been affected by it. We behold as it were 
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego again coming forth from the 
furnace — " upon their bodies the fire has had no power, neither 
has the smell of fire passed upon them/' (Dan. iii. 27.) 

571 . But we must study this great fact more closely, to be able 
to do it justice. We wish, notwithstanding its wide extent, while 
presenting a clear and precise view of it, to be as brief as pos- 
sible ; for we are led to notice it only by the necessities of our 
argument ; and in recalling the faults of Romanists, we feel almost 
the same repugnance as we always express whenever we are forced 
to mention those of Protestants. Besides, we do not forget that 
we are writing an apologetical and not a controversial work. Only 
it is needful that every reader should recognise the hand of God in 
this affair ; and in order that he may recognise it, the marvellous 
contrast in the history of the Papacy must be pointed out to 
him ; on the one hand all those falsehoods, and on the other, 
that constant and immaculate blamelessness in reference to the 
canon. This proof is glaring ; it would be criminal to shut our 
eyes to it. 

In order to call to mind in a few words these gigantic frauds, 
we shall cite only eminent Roman authorities and well-authenti- 
cated facts. 

Section First, 
the false decretals. 

572. For example, in the first place, the False Decretals, those 
letters fraudulently attributed to the popes of the three or four 
first centuries by those of the eighth and tenth ; " a falsehood, of 
which the artifice," says the illustrious Abbe Fleury, 1 " deceived 
the whole Latin Church for 800 years/' In the second place, the 
false donation of the city of Rome to the bishops of that city 
by Constantino the Great ; a donation so often alleged by the 
popes of the Middle Ages, " and upon which," Fleury says again, 

1 Prior of Argenteuil and Confessor of Louis XV., in his liistoire Eccles., torn, 
vi., p. 506, and torn. \l, 4inc discours. 



528 FACTS BEL AUNG TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

" the popes primarily founded their temporal domination." 
Thirdly, the false books attributed to fathers of the Church by 
the defenders of Rome, but acknowledged by the best authors to 
be forged. Fourthly, the true books of the fathers, falsified by 
this same Church in the interest of these new doctrines, and falsi- 
fied even authoritatively by its official publications and its Index 
Expurgatorius. Fifthly, the Roman Breviary itself, as well as 
the false narrations, the false citations, the false books, the false 
miracles, which we find reproduced in it from year to year, by 
order of the Popes, to be read every day by the hundred thousand 
Latin priests who are obliged even at this day, over all the 
world, and under pain of mortal sin, to repeat it every day word 
for word, and during the hours, all the sentences, in their daily 
devotions. 

Certainly we see enough here to make all thoughtful men 
admire the divine fact which we point out. But we must look 
at it more closely. 

573. It is well understood that the Decretals are epistles in 
which the popes reply to the consultations of bishops. They 
are called decretals, because in the Church of Rome they have the 
force of law. And as to the False Decretals, they are letters 
fraudulently attributed by the popes of the Middle Ages to popes 
of the three or four first centuries, in order to induce the belief 
that these first bishops then enjoyed the prerogatives which their 
successors did not claim till six, seven, or eight hundred years 
after them. " Never," it has been said, — " never has the history 
of mankind presented the example of so gigantic a fraud ; gigantic 
in its boldness, gigantic in its duration, gigantic, above all, in the 
. immensity of its success. This powerful and incomparable false- 
hood established the domination of Rome throughout the Middle 
Ages ; and the artifice," — I borrow once more the words of the 
confessor of Louis XV., the illustrious Abbe' Fleury, — " the artifice 
deceived the whole Latin Church for 800 years, although there 
is no one," he adds, " moderately informed in these matters, who 
may not recognise the falsity in the present day." 1 We give here 

1 Tom. vi., lib. xliv., in the year 785. See also, for the False Decretals, Gieseler, 
Kirchengeschichte, ii., § 20. According to this historian, the compilation was of 
the dates 829 and 845. 



THE FALSE DECRETALS. 



529 



in his own words, but somewhat condensed, the account of it 
contained in his sixth book : — 

" The successor of Fulrad in the Abbey of St Denys was 
Enguerran, Bishop of Metz. A collection of canons is attributed 
to him, bearing the name of Pope Hadrian, who gave them to 
him on September 19, 785. Other copies state that it was 
Enguerran who presented them to the Pope, which is much more 
probable. What distinguishes this from preceding collections is 
the extracts from the False Decretals of Isidore with which it is 
filled. And this is the first time we find these decretals made use 
of." Such is Fleury s account. 

But we should read ao-ain in this author with what arrogance 
the Popes Nicholas and Hadrian (in 864 and 874) cited these 
fraudulent acts, to sustain their pretensions, to Hincmar, Arch- 
bishop of Rheims, and to King Charles the Bald. 

574. " The collection in which these acts are found " (I again 
quote Fleury) " bear the name of Isidore Mercator, who appears 
to have been a Spaniard. He says in the preface that he had 
been obliged to compile this work by eighty servants of God, 
and that, next to the canons of the apostles, he had inserted some 
decretal letters of the Popes Clement, Cletus, and others, down to 
Sylvester, (in 314.) But he does not say where he found them. 
They were unknown to Dionysius Exiguus, who had collected, 
200 years before, the decretals of the Popes only since Siricius, 
(384.) Moreover, they bear evident signs of imposture. Their 
dates are almost all false ; all are in the same style — more suited 
to the eighth century than the three first, — and full of different 
passages from authors later than the Popes whose names they 
bear. The contents of these letters equally expose the forgery ; 
they speak of archbishops, primates, and patriarchs, as if these 
titles had been in use from the first rise of the Church ; they pro- 
hibit holding any council, even a provincial one, without the 
Pope's permission ; they represent appeals to Rome as common ; 
they complain of frequent usurpations of the temporal property 
of the churches, &c. The artifice, gross as it tuas, imposed on 
the ivhole Latin Church; the false decretals passed for true 
during 800 years, and were scarcely given up in the last century. 
It is true!' adds Fleury, " that, in the present day, there is 

2 L 



530 



FACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



hardly any man moderately informed in these matters who does 
not recognise the forgery ^ 

575. "The decree of Gratian, (in 1551,)" he continues, 2 "suc- 
ceeded in confirming and extending the authority of the false de- 
cretals which were found scattered everywhere ; for, during more 
than three centuries, no other canons were acknowledged than 
those in this collection ; no others were followed in the schools and 
in the tribunals. Gratian had even gone beyond these decretals to 
extend the authority of the Roman Pontiff, maintaining that the 
Pope was not subject to the canons. This he said of his own 
head, and without bringing any authoritative proof for it. Thus 
in the Latin Church a confused idea was formed that the power 
of the Pope was unlimited," &e. 

" The forgery of the decretals, attributed to the first Popes," 
says the learned Dupin, doctor of the Sorbonne, " is in the 
present day so well known that it is unnecessary to say a word 
about it." 3 

And yet he adds, that "they have been cited times without 
number by the Popes, the councils, and the canonists. As they 
appeared in a dark age, it is not astonishing that they were re- 
ceived without much hesitation. Yet Hincmar of Rheims and the 
French bishops had, at first, much difficulty in receiving them ; 
but soon after, they acquired authority, being supported by the 
Court of Rome, the pretensions of which they favoured." Thus 
sjDeak the doctors of Rome. 

576. At the view of these impostures, without the aid of which 
the empire of the Papacy could never have been established, we 
ask once more, if every one does not see, with profound astonish- 
ment, or, shall I not say, with devout admiration, that the bold 
propagators of these gigantic lies were able, nevertheless, to main- 
tain a fidelity so perfect in preserving intact, during eight cen- 
turies, the very books of which, at the same time, they interdicted 

1 Labbe, the Jesuit, has himself exposed the imposture. And yet, says G. 
Finch, the Popes of the Church of Rome have hitherto never condemned the 
false decretals, (Romish Controv., vol. ii., p. 451. London, 1851.) They remain 
in the Breviary. 

2 Tom. iv., Fourth Discourse on Ecclesiastical History, § 6. 

3 Nouvelle Bibliotheque des Auteurs Eccles, p. 215. Utrecht, 1731. 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 



531 



the reading in the vulgar tongue, under pain of death, to all the 
nations of the earth ! 

Section Second, 
the donation of constantine. 

577. But what shall we say of the donation of Constantine, of 
his leprosy, his cure, and his baptism ? This audacious imposture 
must be noticed here separately, on account of the great use the 
Popes made of it, the immense success they obtained with it, and 
all that is still to be found about it in the Roman Breviary. Con- 
stantine, we are told, had been attacked with a frightful leprosy 
all over his body ; all the remedies applied were inefficacious ; 
the priests of the capitol were consulted. " Let us kill a certain 
number of young children," they answered. " We will fill a bath 
with their blood, still warm ; plunge into it, and you will be 
cured." Constantine, struck with horror, refused. The following 
night he saw in a dream the apostles Peter and Paul. " We are 
sent to thee by Jesus Christ," they said. " Thou wilt find the 
Bishop of Rome on Mount Soracte ; he has retired into the 
caverns of the rocks with his priests, to avoid thy persecutions. 
Send for him ; he will shew thee a bath. Plunge into it three 
times, and thou wilt be cured. But then purify thyself, forsake 
thy idols, and serve the true God." The emperor, alarmed, sought 
out Pope Sylvester. " Who are those gods that visited me last 
night?" he asked. "They are not gods, but apostles of Jesus 
Christ ; and, better to convince thee, I will cause one of my 
deacons to bring the images of the two apostles, which they keep 
for luorship " (J /) The emperor, struck with admiration, recognised 
them, obeyed the Divine call, was baptized by Sylvester, saw at 
once his leprosy entirely cured, and, under the influence of Syl- 
vester, built several churches, and adorned them with holy 
images. Such is the gross tale of these impostures, which every 
priest of the Latin Church is still obliged to recite in his Breviary 
at every return of the 31st of December. 1 " Constantinus igitur 
coelestibus monitis obtemperans Silvestrem d'digentissime con- 

1 Breviariura Romanum, (on the feast of Tope Sylvester, December 31.) 
Lectio iv. et lectio v. 



532 FACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



quisitum vocat ; a quo ajjostolorum imagines recognoscens, bap- 
tismo sanatur. Itaque auctore Silvestro, multas basilicas aedifi- 
cavit, quas sacris imaginibus ornavit V 

But let us listen again to the Abbe Eleury. "Leo IX./' he 
says, "and the Popes who undertook to repair the ruins of the 
tenth century, and to restore the splendour of the Roman Church, 
wished also to re-establish its temporal power, which they founded 
primarily on the donation of Gonstantine. Everybody in the pre- 
sent day," he adds, " knows what this donation amounts to ; and 
its falsity is even more universally acknowledged than that of the 
decretals of Isidore. But in the time of Gregory VII. and his 
successors the truth of this story was not questioned ; St Bernard 
himself supposes it to be true ; it was known and received from 
the ninth century ; and men's minds scarcely began to be disabused 
towards the middle of the fifteenth. 1 And if you go to Rome to 
visit, as we have done, the holy church of the Lateran, 1 the princi- 
pal basilica in Rome and in the world/ look on your left, near the 
left entrance on the north side of the church, at the great marble 
which Gregory XI. placed there in 1371, or, on the right of the 
right entry, at that which Pius V. placed there two centuries 
later, you will read on either the leprosy of Constantine, his 
cure and baptism at Rome, although every one knows that he 
was not baptized before 337, at Nicomedia, according to the 
unanimous testimony of Eusebius, Ambrose, Socrates, Sozomen, 
and Theodoret." (See Muratori, Annal. d'ltalia, Ann. 324.) 

578. Once more, let every one judge of the danger, almost 
inevitable, to which the Scriptures were exposed in such days, 
with such men, in such hands — those Scriptures which were for- 
bidden to the people at a later period, in the name of the Popes, 
under penalty of death. And yet the danger has been incurred, 
without the least injury, for more than ten centuries ! To whom 
must the glory be ascribed but to the God of the Scriptures ? 

But again, what was all this compared with what has been 

1 It makes a part of the lying collection of Isidore the merchant, such as the 
pretended council at Rome, under Sylvester, the letter of Athanasius to Mark, 
that of Anastasius to the bishops of Germany, &c, &c. It is to be found in 
the Decree of Gratian. Distinct, xcvi. (See Basnage, Annates ad Annum 324, 
§ 7 ; and Gieseler, ii., § 20, note v.) 



FALSE BOOKS OF THE FATHERS. 



533 



done to alter the works of the fathers, and even to alter them 
officially ? 

Certainly, it was here that, in two directions, the perils of the 
canon appeared to be imminent. On the one hand, false works of 
the fathers were fabricated in very great numbers, in the bosom 
of the Eoman Church, and even quoted largely by her greatest 
doctors, to justify her pretensions and her doctrines. On the 
other hand, the genuine works of the fathers were altered and 
falsified in the bosom of the same Church, and often by superior 
orders, in her mysterious Index Expurgatorius. 

Section Third. 

false books of the fathers fabricated or quoted. 

579. I say, false books. The world has been deluged with 
them. If you wish to form an idea of their number, and of the 
difficulty of separating them from the genuine works of the writers 
to whom they are ascribed, read, respecting only the writings of 
Chrysostom and Basil, what their editors, the learned Benedictine 
monks, tell us. 1 "The multitude of books which have falsely 
taken the name of Chrysostom (ementiuntur) is immense, 
(ingens,) " says Montfaucon. " The pains I have been obliged to 
take/' says Garnier, "to distinguish the genuine works of Basil 
from the spurious, are enormous, (yel maximum?) since not a 
small number only, but all have been controverted, (cum ad- 
ducantur in controversiam non pauca quaedam scripta, sed 
omnia.)" On this subject we refer our readers to the complaints 
of Thomas James, chief keeper of the Bodleian Library in 
Oxford University, contained in a very learned work, published 
first in 1012, and reprinted in London in 184*3 with this title : — 
"A Treatise of the Corruptions of Scripture, Councils, and Fathers, 
by the Prelates, Pastors, and Pillars of the Church of Pome, for 
the Maintenance of Popery." In the first part the author treats 
of the bastardy of the false fathers; in the second, of the corrup- 
tion of the true fathers ; and in the last, (the fifth,) of three 

1 Joannis Chrysostom.i omnia quae extant Opera, B. Bernardi de Montfaucon. 
Paris, 1839 ; Prsefatio. S. Basilii, Caesareae Archicp., Ac, Opera Juliani Gamier, 
Monachi Benedict. ; Trrcfatio. Paris, 1721. 



534 



FACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



remedies against all manner of Popish corruptions, to restore the 
genuine texts to the Church of God. In the first part he enu- 
merates in detail 187 treatises charged with being spurious by the 
most distinguished doctors of the Church of Rome, such as Bel- 
larmin, Baronius, Possevin, Cotton, Coccius, 1 Pamelius ; and he 
shews, moreover, in very exact and particular tables, that, to 
uphold the teachings of Rome, these very men have allowed 
themselves to make use of these spurious writings in their con- 
troversial works. 

In a list of 103 of these doctrines, he enumerates, upon each 
of them, those of these 187 spurious books which each of the 
principal catholic doctors have respectively alleged, and the exact 
passages in their works in which these citations are made. 2 

We are not able, it is evident, to present these details ; it would 
require volumes. We shall content ourselves with some examples, 
and cite only the Catholic authorities. 

580. For example, in order to exalt Mary by a gross ana- 
chronism, and to make all the Catholic priests believe, when 
reciting their Breviary, that, as early as the fourth century, St 
Augustin called the Virgin Mary the only hope of sinners, it was 
found convenient, even in the Roman Breviary, (for December 9,) 3 
to cite a spurious sermon by this father, in which he is made to 
say, " Through thee we hope for the pardon of our transgressions, 
because thou art the only hope of sinners, (per te speramus veniam 
delictorum, quia tu es spes unica peccatorum.) " But the Bene- 
dictine monks, in editing this father, do not hesitate to say that 
this passage, " though it is read in the Breviary under the name 
of Augustin, is not his; 4 that it is unworthy even of Jerome, to 
whom it has been sometimes attributed, and must belong to more 
recent times, since it is the work of some unskilful forger, (opus 
quippe est imperiti alicujus consarcinatoris.) " 

581. For example, again, to refer, out of these 187 forged 

1 Jodocus. 

2 James's Treatise, Appendix, part i., pp. 339-342. Ed. London, 1843. 

3 Breviarium Romanorum, ex deer. S. Concilii Trident, restitutum, (Antverpiae, 
1823.) Pars hiemalis, die ix., Decembris, Serm. Sanct. Augustini Episc. 

4 "Rejiciunt omnino ut falsvim Verlinus et Vindingus. Nec injuria sane, tametsi 
in Breviario legatur sub Augustini nomine." The Benedictine fathers put it, they 
say, for the first time, in their Appendix. 



FALSE BOOKS OF THE FATHERS. 



535 



writings alleged by James, only to the forged passages of 
Augustin, (sixty-one in number,) and, among all these, only to 
those which have been made use of by Baronius and Bellarmin 
alone, the two most celebrated controversialists of Borne, botli 
cardinals, both librarians of the Vatican, and both twice on the 
point of being popes. 

His treatise Be Animd et Spiritu, acknowledged by the doc- 
tors of Louvain not to be genuine, (Lovan., torn, iii.,) is cited by 
Baronius, (torn, v., p. 537,) and by Bellarmin, (torn, ii., p. 536 ; 
torn, iii., p. 1731.) 

His treatise Be Continentid, acknowledged to be spurious by 
Erasmus, is cited by Bellarmin to prove that lust is not a sin, 
(torn, iv., pp. 383, 387; torn, vi., p. 1312.) 

His Sixteen Epistles to Boniface, acknowledged to be spurious 
by Bellarmin, Erasmus, and the doctors of Louvain, are made use 
of by Baronius, (torn, v, pp. 477-479, 482, 485, 501.) 

His Epistle ad Laetum, rejected as spurious by Erasmus, is 
cited by Bellarmin to prove that children may enter a convent 
without the consent of their parents. 1 

His Liber Hyporjnosticon, held by Bellarmin not to be his, as 
Possevin asserts, is made use of by Bellarmin himself, (torn, iv, 
p. 14.) 

His book, Ad Orosium, declared by Bellarmin not to be his, is 
employed by Bellarmin himself to prove the authenticity of 
Ecclesiasticus, (torn, i., p. 52.) 2 

His book, Quaestiones Veteris et Novi Testamenti, censured by 
Bellarmin as not being his, but the work of a heretic, 3 is made 
use of by Baronius, (torn, i., p. 821,) as also by Cotton, to prove 
that Mary is the queen of heaven, (torn, i., p. 97.) 

His Sermo de Sanctis, 35, held to be undoubtedly spurious by 
Baronius, is made use of by him, (torn, i., p. 415.) 

His book Be Specula, which evidently " nec pilum habet 
Aiigustini" according to Erasmus and Possevin, 4 is cited by 
Bellarmin to prove that Tobit is canonical, (torn, i., p. 143.) 

1 Tom. ii., p. 581. 

2 " Nec librum ilium esse Augustini ut eruditi fatentur," (Bellar., De Controv., 
torn. iii. ; De Missa, lib. ii., cap. xii., p. 229.) 

3 Bell., Disp. de Controv., torn, iv.; De Gratia Primi Hominis, cap. iii., pag. 4; De 
Effect. Savram., torn, iii., lib. ii., c. x., p. 37. * Possevin, in Apparat., torn, i., p. 150. 



536 



FACTS BELATINGr TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



His book, De Utilitate Poenitentiae, condemned both by the 
doctors of Louvain and by Erasmus as not his, is cited by Bellar- 
min to prove the sacrament of penance, (torn, iii., p. 1156.) 

Lastly, his book, De Urbis Excidio, pronounced by Erasmus 
to be the work of an unknown author, is cited by Baronius, (torn, 
v, pp. 20, 200.) 

But why need I give these details, when we have in our hands 
the Roman Breviary 1 

Section Foukth. 
the beetiary. 

582. Here it is that we may see in abundance the easy, general, 
and persevering use made of spurious books in the Roman 
Church, when the object is to support her doctrines. 

What, in fact, is there more official and more sacred than this 
book of devotion — indispensable all over the world for all the 
priests of Catholicism — reconstructed (300 years ago) by a decree 
of the Council of Trent, 1 and by a bull of Paul V., and reprinted 
from year to year by authority in the middle of the nineteenth 
century ? Take it in your hand. What do you find there ? 
Recitals most manifestly contrary to history, often acknowledged 
to be false by the most eminent doctors of the Papacy, and taken 
(at least for the saints of the first ages) either from the Pontifical, 
(Lives of the Popes,) or from the Forged Decretals, or from the 
Roman Martyrology. Read from one end to the other the 
legends of each day, and you will see that the new saints, canon- 
ised since the year 993, 2 are far from presenting legends less 
repulsive or less fantastic than the earlier ones. Read, for Novem- 
ber 23, the fable of Pope Clement, — his anchor round his neck, 
his chapel, and the flowing back of the waters of the Euxine. 
Read, for April 26, the fable of Pope Marcellinus and the false 
Council of Senuesse, to establish the dogma that the Pope, or 
" the supreme see," is to be " judged by none." Read, for May 3, 
the fable of Pope Alexander, fabricated in order to give a divine 
origin (in the year 109) to the use of holy water, of which there 

1 Sess. xxv., c. 21. 

2 When the first canonisation was made, it is said, by J ohn XV. for Uldaric. 



THE BREVIARY. 



537 



had not been really a trace in the Church for the first five cen- 
turies. Read, for January 15, the spurious epistle of Marcellus, 
of which the Jesuit Labbe himself has acknowledged the fraud, 
and the intent of which is to demonstrate that the Church of 
Rome is " the head of the Churches/' and that no lawful council 
can anywhere be held but by permission of the Roman Pontiff. 
Read, for December 31, the fable of Pope Sylvester, pretending 
that Bishop Hosius of Cordova was his legate at the Council of 
Nice. Read, for September 19, the legend of St Januarius, whose 
body, being carried to Naples, extinguished the flames of Vesuvius, 
and whose blood, from the time of Diocletian to our own days, 
liquifies when brought near his skull. Read, for October 9, the 
legend of Dionysius the Areopagite, convicted at Athens by Paul, 
then sent from Rome to Gaul by Pope Clement to preach the 
gospel, and beheaded at Paris, but walking from that city a 
distance of two miles, carrying his head in his hands ! This 
legend is written in the Breviary, though, before the ninth century, 
it had never been mentioned by any one for 700 years. 1 

583. Let us check ourselves ; for we might cite the legends of 
the whole book. Certainly, when we reflect that such has been 
for so many ages the constant and principal discipline in which 
the priests of Rome have been trained all over the world — when 
we consider that every day they have to mix with their devotions 
falsehoods so manifest — acknowledged as such even by their own 
doctors — we shall receive two strong impressions. On the one 
hand, we shall be no longer astonished to see such men welcome 
with eagerness, and by the same means, as being able to serve the 
same cause, all the most repulsive and absurd modern miracles, 
apparitions of the Virgin at Salette, or Lourdes, or elsewhere, 
images whicli sweat, or weep, or drop blood, saints who, like 
Liguori, during their prayers, remain suspended in the air, and 
who have been during their lifetime endowed with ubiquity, 
shewing themselves at the same time in different places.! But, 

1 The father Richard Simon wrote in 1G85 : — " The fables, from which the 
Breviary is not yet thoroughly purged, have never been approved by respectable 
members of our communion, (the Roman.) But if all of them were taken away, 
there would be scarcely any ' Lives of the Saints' left." — Lettres Choises, torn, i., 
lettre xxvii. Amsterdam, 1770. 

2 See The Lives of St Alphonsus Liguori and Four other Saints, Canonised 



5 -38 FACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



on the other hand, how must we be struck with the profoundest 
admiration at the extreme hazard to which the collection of the 
Scriptures has been exposed, among such men, during 900 or 1000 
years, and yet that this book has come forth unsullied from such 
hands ! Honour, then, to their immutable canon ! Honour to 
their immaculate text of the New Testament ! — that is to say, 
honour and adoration to God who gave them, and who preserves 
them, even in the midst of such men, because He gave them ! 

584. We wish to close this argument, which has already 
occupied too many pages ; but, to comprehend the extent of the 
dangers the canon has escaped under the rule of Koine, and its 
proceedings relative to books, it is needful not only to notice the 
forged writings which have been accepted by her ; we must also 
survey the genuine writings that have been officially falsified to 
promote the interest of papal doctrines. It is then that you will 
really be able to form a just idea of the protection by which our 
Scriptures must have been sheltered, in order to reach us in their 
integrity. 

Section Fifth, 
the genuine works of the fathers falsified. 

585. For brevity's sake we shall confine ourselves to recapitu- 
lating what the wise and conscientious James has said on this 
subject, in his chapters entitled, the one, Corruption of the True 
Fathers ; the other, The Mystery of the Indices Expurgatorii. 

This author discusses with much precision, in the course of 
ninety-five pages, fifty alterations made in the fathers to promote 
the Roman doctrines. He then demonstrates the fraud, either 
from editions previously printed, or from the most ancient manu- 
scripts. Let us adduce, for example, the first, which occurs in 
Cyprian. 1 

586. This father is naturally one of those whose works Rome has 
taken the greatest pains to expurgate, (to use her own language,) 
because he wrote in Latin ; in addition to which he was a bishop 

May 26, 1839, a work published first in Rome by Cardinal Pastulatori, and after- 
wards in London, by Cardinal Wiseman. See the Life of Liguori, pp. 49, 26 ; 
of St Francois Girolano, p. 102; of St Jean-Joseph, p. 150. 
1 Treatise, &c, p. 75-104. 



THE GENUINE WOEKS OF THE FATHEES FALSIFIED. 



539 



and a martyr. Cardinal Borromeo was specially intrusted by 
Pope Pius IV. with publishing a new edition, Manutius with 
printing it at Kome, 1 and four cardinals with taking care that 
the work was properly done. But in the first passage, De 
Unitate Ecclesice, cap. 4, 2 after these words — "By this the other 
apostles ivere invested with the same honour and power as Peter; 
but the beginning sets out from unity, in order to shew one Church 
of Christ," — they have interpolated (in spite of eight or nine 
editions printed previously to 1564) 3 the following words: — " And 
that one chair (cathedra) might be shewn, the primacy is given 
to Peter. And they are all pastors ; but one flock is shewn us 
which all the apostles feed with unanimous consent" 4 

Then, to these words of Cyprian, printed at Rome — "Does he 
who resists the Church believe himself to be in the Church ? " — the 
following words are added in the later edition printed at Anvers : 
"He who forsakes the chair of Peter, on which the Church is 
founded, must not presume that he is in the Church, (Qui cathedram 
Petri, supra quam fundata est, deserit, in Ecclesid se esse non 
confidat.) " 

Now the editor, Pamelius himself, James says, attests that these 
changes have been made contrary to not only all the ancient 
printed editions of Cyprian, but contrary to all the ancient manu- 
scripts, with the single exception of one that was found, according 
to him, in an old abbey near Haynau, in Silesia, 5 

587. St James shews, moreover, at some length, many other 
falsifications of the fathers : for example, in Cyprian again, De 
Bono Patientiae, contrary to all manuscripts,^ and elsewhere ; in 
Augustin, in seven of his works ; in Ambrose, in three of his 

1 The edition appeared at Rome in 1564. 

2 P. 253, 4th ed., Paris, 1574. "Hoc erant utique et caeteri apostoli quod fuit 
Fetrus, pari consortio pracditi ot honoris et potestatis ; sed exordium ab imitate 
proficiscitur, ut una Chri.sti Ecclesia monstretur." 

3 That of Spires, 1477; that of Bale, 1520, 1525, 1530; of Cologne, 1520; that 
of Erasmus, Remboldt, and Grypheus. Pamelius says he had them under his 
eyes in his revision of Cyprian. 

4 " Ut et cathedra una monstretur. Unam cathedram constituit. Et pastores 
sunt omnes, sed grex unus ostenditur, qui ab apostolis unanimi consentioue 
pascatur." 

5 Abbatiae Cambronensis in Hannonid. Pamelius, (James, p. 147.) 
c Treatise, &c., p. 151. 



540 



FACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



works; in Ghrysostom, in four of Lis homilies ; in the acts of seven 
councils ; in Ignatius, in Cyril, in J erome, in Gregory, &c. 

588. Among others, he instances the thirty-eighth 1 epistle of 
Gregory, which the celebrated bishop Jewel, in one of his sermons, 
had adduced as announcing that the King of Pride (Antichrist) at 
his coming would find to assist him a whole army of priests, which 
their pride prepared for him, {sacerdotum ei praeparatur exer- 
citus.) The bishop was immediately assailed and defamed in the 
University of Oxford for having altered the words of Gregory as 
they stood in the printed editions. But, on referring to the 
ancient manuscripts of this father in All Souls' College, it was 
found that Jewel had quoted the true reading ; while his accusers, 
without being aware, had really patronised a falsified text ; for all 
the Roman editions had expurgated Gregory's text by writing, 
" Sacerdotum est praeparatus exitus," thus making him say, on 
the contrary, that Antichrist would destroy the priests. 

589. The same thing happened, though in a more noticeable 
manner, to the noble Du Plessis Mornay, in his famous disputation 
with Du Perron, and not long after, in the age of the Reformation, 
to the learned reformer Peter Martyr, in his controversy with 
Gardiner. In order to combat transubstantiation, he had quoted 
a passage of Chrysostom, which he had read at Florence in 
a manuscript of his Epistle ad Gaesarium, at that time un- 
published. " The nature of the bread remains the same,'' said 
Chrysostom. Now, after the martyrdom of Cranmer, a copy of 
this passage of Chrysostom, in the handwriting of the reformer, 
had been left in the archbishop's library, and the Roman contro- 
versialists had declared that this passage was only an impudent 
fabrication of P. Martyr, (Vermigli.) But some time after, an 
honest Frenchman, a Roman Catholic, Emeric Bigot, travelling 
in Italy, met in a monastery of the Dominicans at Florence with 
this manuscript, of which Martyr (himself a Florentine) had for- 
merly taken a copy. He transcribed it and took it to Paris, and, 
delighted with the discovery he had made, caused it to be properly 
printed in that city. But what happened immediately? The 
censors of the Sorbonne, who had been informed that the book 
would shortly appear, obtained an order from the king to stop it. 

1 St Gregor, lib. iv., ep. 38. (Treatise, &o., p. 147.) 



THE GENUINE WORKS OF THE FATHERS FALSIFIED. 541 

They required Bigot to take out of the work before it was pub- 
lished all this offensive portion of Chrysostom, extending to nine 
pages, to cancel the title and table of contents in which this 
epistle was named, and, that the loss might not be perceived, to 
take care to substitute nine new pages ! Nevertheless, as the 
public were astonished at not seeing the expected epistle, and as 
some traces still remained of its abstraction, Wake recovered the 
cancelled pages, and Basnage published them. At last the Jesuits 1 
were obliged to publish it themselves, and tried to shew that 
Chrysostom's words, as Martyr had read them, if properly under- 
stood, contained nothing contrary to the orthodox doctrine of 
Rome. 2 

590. It is thus, that in the publication of the fathers, the gene- 
ral policy of Rome has always been to subordinate the integrity of 
their text to the interests of her own dogmas ; so that if you hap- 
pen to discover some ancient manuscript of one of the most 
esteemed fathers, containing sentences that are not for her advan- 
tage, rather than they should be published, the original must be 
destroyed or corrected, and not printed without undergoing ex- 
purgation. 

591. The corruption of the text of the fathers, James says 
again, would have gone much further, if, towards the beginning 
of the sixteenth century, an Erasmus of Rotterdam had not been 
found, — if this learned man had not given the first signal of alarm 
against the barbarous alteration which their books were under- 
going, and if the little but noble city of Bale had not laboured so 
admirably in the faithful reproduction of their best works. 

Also the Roman expurgators, since the death of Erasmus, 3 have 
busied themselves in publishing new editions of his works, " with 
so many alterations, that a volume might be made of the passages 
they have retrenched or corrupted." 4 

1 Father Hardouin. 

2 See the whole account detailed in the Catholic Layman, May 19, 1858. See 
also Buddaens, Thcol. Dorjmat., lib. v., v. 1, § 33; and Richard Simon, Lctircs 
Choises, i., 115. 

3 In 153G, at the very time when it was in agitation to make him a cardinal. 
This learned man was allowed, during his lifetime, to publish his satires and 
denunciations against the abuses of the times and the impostures of the monks ; 
but after his death the influence of his writings was very much dreaded. 

4 Treatise, &c, p. 318. There is a list, volume by volume, at the end of the 



542 



PACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



592. In a word, if you wish to form an idea, this author adds, 
of the labour of alterations these expurgators have expended in 
reproducing the documents of ecclesiastical history, compare the 
last edition of the Councils published at Eome with the Councils 
of Binius, the Councils of Binius with those of Nicolinus, those 
of Nicolinus with those of Sirius, with Zerlin, or with Grahbe, 
and you will always find that the last editions are the worst ; at 
the same time, the worst are reckoned the best among the 
Eomanists. 

But of all these astounding facts, the most significant is the 
mysterious and powerful institution of the Index Expurgatorius. 
It is here that we may form an idea of the clangers the canon, 
humanly speaking, has been exposed to in the Eoman Church ; it 
is here we shall see nearer at hand the open or secret acts of vio- 
lence done to the monuments of ecclesiastical history and to the 
fathers by the authorities of Rome, and by the Jesuits. In spite 
of all their bulls and bloody persecutions, the writings of Wicklifie 
and Luther had deprived them of half Europe, and they found it 
would be necessary, for the preservation of their power, that these 
first enterprises against books should be continued on a larger 
scale ; and this gave birth to the bold institution of the Index, of 
which it now remains for us to speak. 

Section Sixth, 
the index expurgatorius. 

593. The origin of the Index must be attributed alike to the 
Jesuits, the Popes, and the Council of Trent. 

The council, considering the dangers with which the Church of 
Eome would be menaced if all sorts of books had free circulation, 
urged the Pope to choose the best- qualified of his cardinals, in 
order to constitute them inquisitors-general for the whole Chris- 
tian republic ; so that all other inquisitors, established by them in 
every city and province, might take council of them. 

fourth part, entitled, " A Table of the Divinity Books first set forth and approved, 
then censured, by Papists," (p. 269.) " The number of corrupted places, not 
reckoning the corrections of the Spanish Index Expurgatorius, amount," James 
says, " to 524, many of which contain from one hundred to two hundred lines." 



THE 1XDEX EXPUEGATOEIUS. 



543 



They had, besides, deputies, commissaries, and notaries under 
them, charged to take care that nothing contrary to the Catholic 
faith should be written or published, and that heretics, of whatever 
rank, should be punished severely, by the loss of their dignities 
and property, and, if requisite, of their life. The council chose at 
first, from the multitude of bishops of which it was formed, the 
prelates of the greatest ability to draw up an Index, which marked 
all the books to be interdicted. Their work, after having been 
presented to the council, was submitted to Pope Pius IV., who at 
last ordered it to be published, with certain regulations, by a bull 
of March 24, 1564. After that Sixtus V. greatly enlarged both 
the rules and the expurgations ; Pius V. and Gregory XIII. still 
further increased the privileges of the cardinal inquisitors ; and, 
lastly, Clement VIII., again taking the Index in hand, named seven 
cardinals, and a good number of able men, to whom he gave " all 
the powers necessary/' he said, "to accomplish in reference to 
books the triple business which had been committed to them, of 
interdiction, expurgation, and publication." Thus the bull 1 speaks 
of books to be interdicted, books to be expurgated, and books to be 
printed or reprinted. And this affair, in the eyes of the Papal 
Court, was one of great importance. It therefore took the greatest 
care in the choice of its inquisitors, and gave them enormous 
powers over all sorts of persons, and all sorts of writings. It even 
established all the apparatus of a printing establishment in the 
palace of the Vatican, in order that the reprinting of works might 
be carried on under the eyes of the cardinals. 

594. "Was it known till of late," says the learned Mr James, 2 
"(and that by God's especial providence,) that at Rome, at Lisbon, 
in Spain, Naples, and in the Low Countries, there were men ap- 
pointed for the same purpose, and books printed, to the end that 
neither in Hebrew, Chaldee, Greek, Latin, nor in any other language, 
in divinity, humanity, law, physic, philosophy, or any faculty, 
there should be any proposition, position, book, sentence, word, 

1 " Quo facilius negotium, cum prohibitionis turn expurgationis et inipressionis 
librorum, peragatur, eaa omnes facultates privilegia et indulta con(irmamus, et, 
quatenus opus est, innovainus," &c. See Lit. Clem. VIII., Praefixas Ind. Lib. 
Prokib. datas Tusculi sub annulo Piscatoris, 1505; Clem. VIII., in Ind. Lib. 
Proliib., p. 5. 

2 Treatise, &c., p. 236. 



544 FACTS EELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

syllable, or letter, that would impugn the doctrine established by 
the Court of Eome or the Council of Trent, uncorrected, unamended. 
Nay, do they not proceed a little further ? To correct fathers, 
Greek or Latin, of the East or West Church ? And this reforma- 
tion or expurgation of all manner of books, doth not only reach 
unto the printed volumes, but unto the manuscript copies also, as 
hath been already sufficiently proved elsewhere." "Ad istos enim 
quoque purgatio pertinet" says the Jesuit Possevinus of Mantua." 1 

595. Moreover, " if the Papists,," Mr James goes on to say, "had 
any good meaning in framing these catalogues of books prohibited 
or purged, why do they make it opus tenebrarum ? Why do they 
hide them so cunningly from the light and sight of men, that few 
there be of their own religion that do know the mystery of this 
artifice? The knowledge thereof is too high for them ; it is reserved 
for the inquisitors. These catalogues, when they are printed, are 
delivered only into their hands ; no man can get one of them, be 
he bachelor, licentiate, or doctor in divinity, unless he be of that 
office, or fit to be trusted with such a secrecy. . . . And yet 
all these books are to be seen, with sundry others, brought 
together by God's special providence into the public library of 
Oxford ; printed, all of them, beyond the seas, by those that were 
esteemed true Papists." 2 " The Index of Antwerp was discovered 
by Junius, who lighted upon it by great hap. 3 The Spanish and 
Portuguese was never known till the taking of Cadiz. 4 The Roman 
Index was procured, but with much ado." 

596. "We understand, it is true, that the partisans of the court 
of Eome pretend in the present day that the alteration of ancient 

1 " The Index Expurgatorius of Eome was published by Jo. Maria, Master of 
the Sacred Palace, Eomae, 1607, in 8vo. The Portuguese Index by Georg. Dalmeida, 
Archbishop of Lisbon, at Lisbon, 1581, in 4to. The Spanish, by Gaspar Quiroga, 
Cardinal and Archbishop of Toledo, Madrid, 1584, in 4to. Also that of Naples, 
by Gregorius Capuccinus; the title is Enchiridion Ecclesiasticum, Yen., 1588, in 
8vo. That of the Low Countries, by commandment of the king of Spain and the 
Duke of Alva, with the especial care and oversight of Arias Montanus, in 4to. 
Ant., 1571." (Treatise, &c, p. 236.) 

2 The Catalogue of the Public Library at Geneva mentions four of them — among 
others, that of Spain, by Quiroga; that of Danvers, reprinted at Saumur in 1601, 
under the care of Du Plessis Mornay ; and that of Eome, in 1686. 

3 James, Treatise, &c, p. 244. 

4 Does Mr James refer to the siege of 1553 ? Or, perhaps, he refers to the taking 
of Cadiz by the English in 1576 ? 



THE INDEX EXPTjEGATORIUS. 



545 



authors was not the object of the Index Purgatorius, and did not 
enter into the circle of its jurisdiction ; but this is a vain excuse, 
and we have irrefragable proof of the contrary." First of all, the 
Index itself ordains very clearly that in such and such a father 
such a sentence shall be cancelled, (deleatur;) then the avowals of 
the expurgators, and the high approbation they award themselves 
for these alterations of the texts ; lastly, ipsum factum, their own 
acts, the books of the fathers actually expurgated, especially those 
of Ambrose, of Cyprian, and of Gregory, (all printed at Eome.) 
What reply can be made, if, to prove that the fathers have been 
purged, we shew the Index that enjoins it, and enjoins it without 
any other reason than their disagreement with the doctrines of 
Rome ? There exists, we know, two Indices Expurgatorii — one 
printed a long time ago at Madrid, 1 the other very recently at 
Eome, under the care of the Master of the Sacred Palace. 2 Now, 
in these two Indices you will find cancelled sentences of the text 
of Gregory of Xyssa, of Cbrysostom, of Anastasius, of Eucherius, 
of Procopius, of Agapetus, of Didymus, of Alexander — sentences 
attacking the worship of images, penances, and the primacy of 
Peter, or asserting the supremacy of temporal princes. What 
reply can be made to this first proof, when, for example, for 
Gregory of Nyssa you read these words in the Index of Spain, 
that in this sentence, " We have learnt to render our worship 
only to that nature which is uncreated," the word only is struck 
out ? 3 Take another example from Cbrysostom. We read that, in 
his discourse on St Philogonius, these words are to be cancelled, 
" As for me, I assert that if any of us sinners, renouncing our for- 
mer evil ways, sincerely promises God to return to them no more, 
God will require nothing more for fuller satisfaction." 4 

1 Indices Libror. Expurgandorum, in Studiosorum gratiam confecti, torn, i., in 
quo quinquaginta auctoruin libri prae caeteris desiderati emendatur Roinse, ex 
Typographia R. Cam., Apost.,1807. Superiorum permisaa; in 8vo. 

2 Ser. Col., 116, circa finera, in illis verbis : " Earn solunmiodo naturam quae 
increata est, colere et venerari didicimus, deleatur dictio soloininodo. Quod est 
ipsissimum verbum Greg. Nyssi." — Ind. HUp., p. 30. 

3 " Ego sane assero, quod si unusquisque de nobis peccantibus, relictis prioribus 
malis, Deo polliceatur vere se non rediturum ad ea, nihil aliud ad plenioretn 
satisfactionein Deus requisiturus sit. Quae verba sumptae sunt ex S. Chrys. Orati. 
de S. Philogonio." — Ind. Hisp., p: 20. 

4 Apud Alph. Gomezeum, regium Typographum, 15S4, in 4to. 

2 M 



546 



FACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



597. But, after all, what need have we of the Index to prove 
the mutilation, when we hear the defenders of Rome and her in- 
quisitors avow the duty of correcting the fathers ; and when, in 
fact, they have so largely accomplished their expurgations ? 

Cardinal Boromeo and Cardinal Montalto, as well as the Bishop 
of Venusia > charged with editing the works of Gregory of Rome, 
all three openly avow having purged Cyprian, Ambrose, and Gre- 
gory of all the spots impressed on them by the heretics, to infect 
the minds of the simple. 1 They have even interdicted some of 
the works of the fathers, (particularly of St Ambrose,) till their 
labour of correcting was finished — "for fear," they said, "that, 
in the editions previously printed, what was given for life, might 
operate for death." 2 

Section Seventh, 
conclusion of this chapter. 

598. This is sufficient. It was necessary to pass all these facts 
under a rapid review, that the force of our present argument 
might be understood ; that we might exhibit, on the one hand, the 
extreme danger which, without the grace of God, the volume of 
the New Testament would have incurred from the incessant attacks 
of Rome ; and, on the other, the vigilant hand from on high which 
has never ceased to protect the sacred deposit of the oracles of 
God. 

It would have been unfaithfulness on our part not to recall all 
these facts ; for every one who considers them attentively will be 

1 " Totus in earn curam incubueris," Boromeo writes, " ut omnia Cypriani scripta 
mendis antea defermata, nunc in veterem illam integritatem ac speciem resti- 
tuerentur. — Manutius in Ep. "Obscura explicuimus," Montalto writes to Gregory 
XIII., "manca supplevimus, adjecta rejecimus, transposita reposuimus, depravata 
emendavimus ; omnia demum, ut germanam Ambrosii phrasim redolerent, — sup- 
posititiis quibuscunque abscissis, pro viribus, studuimus. — Ep. Felic. Card, de 
Montalto ad Greg. P. XIII. " Praeclara baec Patrum monumenta," the Bishop 
of Venusia also wrote, " cum adeo corrupta depromerentur, ut interdum nullam, 
interdum ineptam, aliquando falsam, nonnunquam a fidei institutis, et ab ipsorum 
auctorum menti aliquam, efficerent sententiam." (See also his letter at the head 
of the works of Gregory and Cyprian.) 

2 " Inquisitores S. fidei negotiis praefecti, lectionem illarum (ne quae ad vitam 
data erant, operarentur mortem) nec omnibus nec absque delectu permittebant." 
—ftp. Card. Montalti, torn. i. Operum Amhrozii. 



CONCLUSION. 



547 



seized with devout astonishment at their Divine contrast. The 
spectacle of all these priests, prelates, inquisitors, and pontiffs, 
giving to the world with one hand these legends, their novel 
dogmas, their forged books, their Breviaries, their Index Expurga- 
torius ; and with the other, as if in spite of themselves, preserving" 
the pure canon of our twenty-seven scriptures in their unalterable 
integrity ! 

Let any one say, then, whether such innocence, maintained for 
ages on this single point, does not reveal a superhuman hand — 
always active, and always powerful in protecting the Sacred 
Volume ? 

Exceptional and involuntary innocence ! Innocence inexplicable 
apart from that invisible hand ! Innocence of twelve centuries ! 
You testify silently, but gloriously, to the divinity of our Scrip- 
tures ! Innocence altogether like that of the Prophet of Pethor, 
who never, in spite of all the longings of his heart, could curse 
Israel ! Innocence of all those prelates and pontiffs, you confirm, 
you gladden afresh our faith — you render it glorious ; for you, 
even you, exclaim, as from the summits of Pisgah, " Surely there 
is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination 
against Israel/' " God is not a man, that he should lie : neither 
the son of man that he should repent. He hath said it, and 
shall he not do it? hath he spoken, and shall he not make it 
good?" "According to this time, it shall be said, What hath 
God wrought ? " " How goodly are thy tents, Jacob, and thy 
tabernacles, Israel ! "1 

599. Thus, then, the Holy Word of God, like amianthus, which 
comes white and pure out of the crucible because it is amianthus — 
the Holy Word of God, though held as dangerous by all the Popes 
to our own day, 2 and though interdicted by them not long ago, 
under pain of death,3 yet it alone, of all books, comes out entire 
from the furnaces of Rome, because it alone is the Word of God, 
inspired from on high, and abides for ever ! I pass on to the 
eighth mark. 

1 Numbers xxiii. 19-23 ; xxiv. 6. 2 Sec the Encyclical Letter of Pius IX 

3 Ever since 1229. See Propp. 5G0 to G63. 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE DECISIVE ADOPTION OF THE SECOND CANON CONTEARY TO THE 
NATURAL INCLINATION OP MEN'S MINDS. 

600. Fact the Eighth. — The hand of God here reveals itself to us by 
another mark not less evidently providential. We behold it in the 
long and mysterions work in the conscience of the Church, by means 
of which the second canon was at last settled. Then you might have 
heard, after two centuries and a-half of hesitation, all the churches 
throughout the world which, since the days of the apostles, had re- 
ceived the twenty books of the first canon, at last agree every- 
where to adopt with the same unanimity the five small later 
epistles. And we may, besides, remark, at the same time, in this 
astonishing agreement, a new feature, well suited to attest the 
Divine intervention — namely, that this universal and decisive 
adoption of the second canon was contrary to the natural inclina- 
tion of men's minds in all the contemporary churches. Tor there 
was then, on the one hand, a most decided opposition between 
their prejudices and the books they adopted ; while, on the other, 
there were numberless affinities between these very prejudices and 
the writings they rejected — writings which henceforward were left 
for ever out of the canon. 

601. Duly to appreciate this novel proof, we must look at the 
phenomenon more closely. Without having been familiar for a 
very long time with the writers of the primitive Church, we may 
easily ascertain what influences had the strongest hold on men's 
minds during the second and third centuries, and the beginning 
of the fourth, and, consequently, we are able to point out, among 
all the writings claiming their religious regard, what those must 



ADOPTION OF THE SECOND CANON. 



549 



be, according to all probability, which, before the event, we should 
believe would be the objects of their choice. Now, what ten- 
dencies do you find prevalent at this epoch ? An excessive fond- 
ness for the marvellous — stories without end of useless miracles — 
a predominant disposition to seek for allegories, to spiritualise 
texts and facts, without either measure or taste — most exaggerated 
notions of the sanctity of saints, and very false notions of their 
merits — an increasing tendency to exalt the priesthood, bishops 
especially — an admiration, almost idolatrous, of martyrs — an ex- 
cessive confidence in the virtue of the sacraments, and particularly 
of baptism, as if it conferred salvation by the simple act of the 
priest — a violent reaction against the doctrine of the millennium 
and the personal reign of Jesus Christ — an antipathy to the Jews, 
and a constant disposition to apply the glorious promises which 
relate to Israel only to the Gentiles, by forced spiritualisations — 
the representation of departed believers as if they were already in 
glory — fantastic imaginations regarding the blessed Virgin, her 
miracles, her present dignity, and her future glory — prayers 
addressed, not yet undoubtedly to the dead to intercede with 
God, but to God to save the dead — extreme respect for celibacy — 
commendation of conventual or solitary life — of expiatory mortifi- 
cations — of will- worship, (i6eko6pr)GKela) — and of all those ob- 
servances of human invention which have, as the apostle says, " a 
show of wisdom," (Col. ii. 23,) but which can only lead souls 
astray. 

602. Now, of all these false notions there is not one word in the 
five epistles which at last were then universally acknowledged as can- 
onical ; but there is an abundance of these same notions in almost 
all the ecclesiastical books which were at the same period rejected 
for ever from the canon by all the churches of Christendom. 
Yet was there not reason, humanly speaking, to have expected 
quite the contrary ? Was there not reason to believe that the five 
epistles, all of them so little favourable to these errors, would be 
so much the more rejected exactly at this epoch, because these 
errors had obtained great credit among the already corrupted 
churches of the East and the West? Was there not reason for 
imagining that ecclesiastical books would be seen to grow in 
favour in proportion as the false notions they recommended 



550 FACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

grew also in favour in the Church? And yet, this is exactly 
the reverse of all that has actually happened ! 

603. In the five epistles there is no legend, no puerility, not a 
word about the virtues of the Virgin Mary, about her miracles, or 
even her person. We find nothing about salvation obtained by 
baptism, (which, indeed, is not once named ;) nothing about the 
privileges of the bishops ; nothing about the least priority of one 
to another, unless, perhaps, that which Diotrephus aimed at, 
for which he is so severely condemned by the apostle John ; 
nothing either to exalt angels. And even, to speak at the same 
time of the second-first canon, while there had been so much 
opposition in the East to the doctrine of the millennium taught in 
the Apocalypse, and in the West, to the doctrine of the Novatians, 
which was erroneously believed to be favoured by the Epistle to the 
Hebrews ; yet exactly at this epoch there was a readiness among 
all the churches everywhere to receive this epistle and the Apoca- 
lypse, as making a part of the sacred oracles. 

604. It was thus, then, that, under the providence of God, the 
canon was consolidated, in spite of the prejudices and tendencies 
of the contemporaneous Church ; and it was thus, also, that the 
uninspired books were everywhere set aside, in spite of all their 
conformity to the false notions which were beginning to spread 
more and more among almost all the churches of Christendom. 

605. And let it be well observed that, towards the commence- 
ment of the fourth century, at the epoch when the final effort was 
made in the Church to complete the canon, an important circum- 
stance aggravated the danger, if she had not been protected, of in- 
troducing uninspired books with the five still controverted epistles. 
Only for a short time past the dangerous custom had begun 
of reading in some public services certain apocryphal books of the 
Old Testament ; and something of the same kind also was done 
for some of the ecclesiastical books which formed an appendage to 
the New Testament, as the Apocrypha had been to the Old. 

Jerome states, 1 that it was only from the fourth century that 
these books began to be read in churches ; " not," he says, " to esta- 
blish doctrines, but only for edification," And Augustin tells us, 2 

1 Praef. in Libr. Solomon. Opp., torn, i., pp. 938, 939. 

2 De Prsedest. Sanctor., lib. i., cap. xiv. Cosin, History of the Canon, p. 106. 



ADOPTION OF THE SECOND CANON. 



551 



that they (particularly Judith, Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus,) were 
read to catechumens ; but by inferior officers, and from a seat less 
elevated than that from which the priests and bishops read the 
canonical Scriptures. And Jerome informs us, about the epistle 
attributed to Barnabas, " that it was read in some churches with 
the apocryphal scriptures ;" l and he says the same of the epistle 
of Clement.2 

Here, let us say, was the danger. For if it resulted from this 
abuse, in reference to the Apocrypha of the Old Testament, that 
their very heresies caused them to be received at a later period by 
the Latin Church as canonical, (particularly for what they contain 
in favour of prayers for the dead, of justification, not by faith, but 
by works, and of the perfection attainable in the present life, &c.,) is 
it not very remarkable, when we compare the analogous errors with 
the wise moderation which the five epistles are able to maintain on 
these very points — is it not very wonderful that these errors have 
not had the same effect as to the Apocrypha of the New Testa- 
ment, and that they have not been added, rather than the five 
controverted epistles, when the decisive acceptance of the anti- 
legomena was accomplished ? 

Why, for example, when a separation was made between the 
different books, were the five epistles assigned plainly, universally, 
and decisively to the canon, while all the rest have been either 
rejected among the spurious (yoOovs) books, such as the Acts of 
Paul, the Shepherd of Hernias, and the Epistle of Barnabas? 
or left among the uninspired books, (ovk ivSiaOrffcovs,) as the 
ejristles of Clement, of Ignatius, and of Polycarp ? 

606. Why, to begin with the most authentic and the most 
esteemed of the monuments of Christian antiquity, has not the 
Epistle of Clement of Eome been inserted in the canon, since its 
author was bishop of Borne, and a companion of Paul; 4 and 
Irenaeus 5 terms it " a most powerful epistle/' {iKavwrdrnv 
ypcKprjv ;) Eusebius, " great and wonderful/' (peyakn re koI 6av- 

1 Catal. Script. Eccles., c. vi. " Inter scripturas apocryphas legitur." 

2 Ibid., c. xv. 3 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., iii., 23. 

4 Philippians iv. 3. 

5 Haeres., iii., 3 ; ed. Harvey, ii., 10 ; " Potentissimas literas." (Latin version.) 
" Einen sehr grundlichen Brief," Stroth. 



552 



FACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



tiao-ia ;) and says that, as Jerome asserts, it was read in some 
churches ? 1 

In the midst of its real excellences, it had, nevertheless, in its 
favour many of those marks of error which the fathers cite with 
pleasure, and which might seem to make it more welcome to the 
churches of the fourth centuries than the Scriptures of the second 
canon ; for example, his fable of the phoenix, (chap, xxv.,) to 
which the fathers are fond of alluding as a proof of the resur- 
rection; 2 or his assertion, also often cited, 3 "that the ocean 
is impassable (am-epavros) by men, but that there are other worlds 
beyond it," (chap. xx. ;) or, again, " that the saints have already 
entered into the place of glory that is their due." (chap v.) 4 

607. Why, also, has not the Epistle of Barnabas been inserted in 
the canon ? For, though manifestly spurious, as the most eminent 
critics of our day are convinced, (Hug, Ullman, Neander, Mynster 
Winer, and Hefele,) 5 yet, bearing the name of an apostle and a pro- 
phet, it is cited seven times by Clement of Alexandria, (who is 
indeed the first to mention it ; ) it is cited twice by Origen, who 
calls it fcaOoki/crjv : it is cited by Eusebius, who ranks it sometimes 
among the spurious (yoOovs) books, sometimes among the contro- 
verted, (avTiXeyojjievovs :) it is cited by Jerome, who attests, as we 
have said, that it was read with the Apocrypha. But yet — what 
should have above all recommended it to the human tendencies of 
the doctors of the third and fourth centuries — it abounds in forced 
allegories, rhetorical exaggerations, unsuitable types, ignorant 
accusations against the Jewish rites and the economy of the Old 
Testament, (chaps, vii., viii.) In all these respects it was certainly 
far more in accordance with the spirit and taste of the age than 
the five epistles of the second canon. 

608. Why, again, have not the epistles of Ignatius, the hearer of 
St John, the successor of Peter at Antioch, the Oeocfyopos, been in- 

1 Hist. EccL, iii., 16. 

2 Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. xviii., cap. 8 ; Tertullian, De Eesurr., cap. xiii. 

3 Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, v., 12 ; Origen on Ezekiel, ch. 18 ; De Prin- 
cipiis, ii., cap. 6, § 6 ; Jerome, in Epist. ad Ephes., ii., 2. 

4 Whereas no part of Scripture places God's elect in glory before the return of 
Jesus Christ and the great day of the resurrection. 

5 See Das Sendschreiben des Ap. Barnabas, 1840, pp. 147 to 195 ; and Patrum. 
Apost. Opera, Hefele, Proleg., p. 11. Tubingen, 1847. 



ADOPTION OF THE SECOND CANON. 



553 



scribed in the canon, at least the three of which the ancient Syriac 
version was discovered by Dr Cureton in 1845 ? for they are cited 
in the second century even by Polycarp 1 and by Irenaeus. 2 Igna- 
tius underwent his glorious death only three or four years after the 
disciple whom Jesus loved ; and many traits in his letter, particu- 
larly his longing for martyrdom, and his extravagant opinions on 
the episcopate, (if at least they existed in the copies of that age,) 
would render them much more acceptable to men of the fourth 
century than the five controverted epistles. 

609. Why, lastly, should not the book of Hennas, who is sup- 
posed to be the friend mentioned by St Paul in Rom. xvi. 14, be 
admitted ? — the book which the early fathers, Irenaeus and Clement 
of Alexandria, cite so often, calling it the scripture? and of which 
Origen goes so far as to say that he holds it to be very useful, and 
inspired. 4 Its doctrine of an election founded on the prevision of 
our works, — his notions respecting the native powers of man, on 
the Fall, and on repentance, which he seems only to apply to chas- 
tity in marriage, 5 and to those who have fallen once after baptism, 
— all these Pelagian tendencies must have gained him favour in 
the third and fourth century, especially in the East, where, Jerome 6 
tells us, he was in great repute, while almost unknown among the 
Latins. 

610. Let us here hail the hand of God, which shews itself 
through the cloud. Certainly this mysterious operation of the 
decisive completion of the canon in all the churches of Christen- 
dom could not have been effected by the mind of man alone, since, 
as we have seen, it proceeded in a direction contrary to his feel- 
ings, contrary to his errors and the tendencies of the age ; and 
since we have seen everywhere the choice of the Church pro- 
nounced without noise, constraint, or dispute, in a uniform man- 
ner, as under the control of an invisible Power, between the 

1 Chaps, vii. and viii. 

2 Adv. Hseres., v., 26 ; Eusebius. Hist. Eccl., iii., 36. 
8 Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., iv., 34. 

4 In Ep. ad Rom. xvi. 14. Yet elsewhere he says, (Honiil. xxv., in Lucam ix 
58,) " Si tamen alicui placet hujusmodi Scripturain recipere." 

5 Lib. ii., caps. 1-4. 

6 Catalog., cap. x. The manuscript discovered by Tischendorf in one of the 
convents of Cairo contains, at the end of the New Testament, the Shepherd of 
Hernias and the Epistle of Barnabas. 



554 FACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

canonical books and those which were not such. Everywhere it 
received with firmness as divine, books unfavourable to human 
inclinations, and everywhere rejected as uninspired those which 
flattered them most, — those which contained the germ of heresies, 
towards which the Church itself was soon strongly attracted from 
day to day. Whence, then, came this choice, everywhere without 
constraint, without conceit, and yet without exception ? Whence 
this secret impulse, contrary to the natural impulses of mankind ? 
Whence this counteracting principle ? The testimonies of past 
times appeared to them, no doubt, powerful and decisive; but 
there must necessarily have been also a divine agency to bring 
about a result so general and so decisive, — to attach for ever to 
the canon the five scriptures which man had so long hesitated to 
receive, and to reject for ever uninspired books which had too 
incautiously been admitted in different places to the public anag- 
nosis. How will you explain all this, without admitting the 
operation of the Almighty Spirit ? How otherwise will you 
explain the repression, as to this one fact, of that spirit of error 
which had already insinuated itself into almost all the churches, 
and which was about soon to commit such ravages among the 
decaying churches both in the East and the West ? 

Let this eighth fact, then, lead us to acknowledge that the 
canon came from God, and that it is indeed He who guards it. 



CHAPTER X 



THE WONDEEFUL PEESEE YATI ON OF THE OEIGINAL TEXT. 

611. Fact the Ninth. — Another testimony to that Divine agency, 
which for eighteen centuries has guarded the scriptures of the 
New Testament, is the inexplicable preservation of their text. 

This fact, so remarkable and so striking, has been profoundly 
studied, and duly established by the Herculean labours to which 
sacred criticism has devoted itself for two hundred years. When 
this new science began its work first of all among the English, in 
the preparation of Walton's Polyglott in 1657, of Fell's Greek 
Testament in 1675, above all, of Mill's Greek Testament in 1707, 
followed by the task announced by Bentley, (1716,) of examining 
all the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament concealed in the 
libraries of Europe, in order to compare them with one another, 
and publish the variations, — the world at first thought that this 
immense undertaking menaced danger to the faith, that it would 
lead to unsettle it greatly, and even shake its foundations. The 
Germans followed the English in these extensive researches, and 
have since gone beyond them. 1 We know that Griesbach alone, 
in 1786, had collated 335 Greek manuscripts for the Gosj:>els 
alone ; and, fifty years later, Scholz 674, besides 200 for the Acts, 
256 for Paul's fourteen epistles, 93 for the Apocalypse, and others 
besides for the Catholic epistles. 

1 The noble labours of Bengel, Wetstein, (of Rale,) Griesbach, Scholz, Matthaei, 
Tittmann, Lachmann, and Tischendorf are well known; as well as the recent 
labours of the excellent and learned Dr Tregelles, (see his Account of the Printed 
Text of the Greek New Testament, London, 1854.) In the Prolegomena of his 
seventh edition of the New Testament, (1S58,) Tischendorf has reprinted the Plan 
of Bentley 's projected researches. 



556 



FACTS EELATINQ TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



We have elsewhere 1 treated at length of this interesting subject. 
" When we recollect," we have said, " that the Greek New Testa- 
ment has been copied and recopied in all Christian countries, and 
under the most different circumstances, during the course of four- 
teen hundred years ; that it has passed through three centuries of 
pagan persecutions, when men convicted of having it in their pos- 
session were thrown to wild beasts ; then, that during the second, 
third, and fourth centuries, lying books were fabricated ; that in the 
eighth and ninth, false legends and false acts were multiplied ; that 
in the tenth and eleventh, so few persons knew how to read, even 
among princes ; that in the twelfth and thirteenth, when the use of 
the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue was punished with death, and 
when, to propagate the error, the works of the fathers, and even 
the acts of the councils were wilfully mutilated ; — when we re- 
collect that scholars, not content with the public and private 
libraries of the West, have ransacked the convents of Mount Athos, 
of Turkish Asia, and of Egypt, — then we can conceive that at the 
beginning of these researches, the enemies of the Sacred Word 
might believe that by this means irreparable injuries would be 
inflicted upon it, and that a great number, even of its friends, 
might suffer distressing anxiety respecting the integrity of our 
Scriptures." But what has been the result ? 

612. On the contrary, by these gigantic labours, on which so 
many distinguished men have expended their lives, a novel, splendid, 
and unexpected proof has been given to the world of that Provi- 
dence which has watched for a succession of ages over the oracles 
of God. The text has been found purer and better attested than 
the most devout Christians dared to hope. From this mass of from 
thirteen to fifteen hundred Greek manuscripts, sought out from all 
the libraries of Europe and Asia, carefully compared with one an- 
other, word by word, letter by letter, by modern criticism, and 
compared, too, with all the ancient versions, Latin, Armenian, 
Syriac, Sahidic, Coptic, Ethiopic, Arabic, Sclavonian, Gothic, and 
Persian, and with all the quotations made from the New Testament 
by the ancient fathers in their innumerable writings, — from this 
mass let us say, and from these gigantic labours, our adversaries, 
astonished and confounded, have beheld sacred criticism return, 

1 Theopncustia, chap, iv., sect. 3, pp. 164-197. (Scott's translation.) 



PRESERVATION OF THE ORIGINAL TEXT. 



557 



covered with the dust of a thousand libraries, but unable, after all, 
to present the world with more than a paltry and inappreciable 
result, — paltry we will say with them, but invaluable by its 
nothingness we will say with the friends of the Sacred Word, 
and all-powerful by its insignificance. 

In fact, all the hopes of the enemies of religion in this direction 
have been confounded, and, as Michaelis has said, "They have 
ceased henceforth to hope for anything from those critical re- 
searches, which at first they had so strongly recommended." 1 

And so well established is the preservation of our Scriptures from 
this time forward, that at this hour, over all the world, you will 
see all the sects of Christians, even the most opposite, give us the 
same Greek Testament, without the various readings having been 
able to form among them two distinct schools. In fact, all Jesuits, 
ministers, or popes, cardinals, pastors, or archemandrites, at Rome 
or at Geneva, at Moscow or at Cambridge or Berlin, all collate the 
same manuscripts, cite the same editions, and produce the same 
texts, Griesbach, or Scholz, or Lachmann, or Tregelles, or Tischen- 
dorf. 

613. We have taken care in another work to construct tables 
that will give every reader the means of readily apprehending these 
results of sacred criticism. This is one of the subjects that require 
to be presented to the eye in order to be clearly understood. We 
shall not go over it again. 

We have there shewn as an example, for the Epistle to the 
Romans, (the longest and most important of the New Testament,) 
all the corrections Griesbach has found that are capable of making 
the slightest change in the meaning of any phrase, and are suscep- 
tible of being expressed in a translation. And how many do you 
think he has been able to find in the four hundred and thirty-three 
verses of this Scripture after a collation of about one hundred and 
forty manuscripts ? He has found jive small and insignificant 
ones, which yet, according to more modern critics, (Tittmann and 
Lachmann,) are reducible to two, or, according to Scholz, more 
modern still, to three. The first (vii. G) depends only on the 
difference of a letter, ( an o instead of an e.) Instead of reading 
"that being dead in which ive were held," Griesbach reads, "being 
1 Vol. ii., p. 2GG. See also pp. 4G7-479. 



558 FACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

dead to that in which we were held." The second (chap, xi.) only 
withdraws as superabundant the parallel and reverse part of ver. 
6 ; and the third (xvi. 5) reads, "the first-fruits of Asia," instead 
of "the first-fruits of Achaia." 1 

We have taken for another example the Epistle to the Galatians, 
and shewn that in the 149 verses of which it consists, Griesbach 
has found only the three following corrections, which, moreover, 
affect the sense only in the slightest degree. " They wish to ex- 
clude us" reads with Griesbach, " They wish to exclude you." For 
"ivhich is the mother of us all" (iv. 26,) read, "which is the mother 
of us." In ch. v. 19, for " adultery, fornication, uncleanness," 
read, "fornication, uncleanness." 

Would you wish to know, as another example, the corrections 
in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which contains 303 verses ? The 
following are those which Griesbach^ has been able to discover in 
nine uncial manuscripts, 121 cursive manuscripts, eleven Sclavonian 
manuscripts, of which Dobrowski gave him the readings, and fifteen 
others, the greater part in the library at Moscow, and made use 
of by Matthaei in 1776. In the quotation Paul makes from 
Psalm viii., in chap. ii. 7, Griesbach omits the words " Thou hast 
set him over the works of Thy hands." Chap. vi. 10 — for "labour 
of love which ye have shewed" he reads, " the love which you have 
shewed." Chap. viii. 11, for "his neighbour," he reads, his "fel- 
low-citizen." Chap. x. 9 — for " to do, God, thy will" he reads, 
" to do thy will." Chap. x. 31 — for " ye had compassion of me in 
my bonds," he reads, "ye had compassion on those in bonds." 
Chap. xi. 11 — for she "received strength to conceive seed, and was 
delivered of a child when she was past age," he reads, " she re~ 

1 Dr Tregelles, on his recent visit to Rome, ascertained the reading in chap. v. 1 
in the Vatican manuscript to be e^6o/>iej>, instead of exofxev. Instead of " we have 
peace with God," it reads, " let us have peace with God." Mill had already pointed 
out this reading, and Tregelles confirms his testimony. 

2 We have preferred giving these readings after Griesbach to render the actual 
fact more significant, as he is considered by the latest critics to have accepted new 
readings too easily ; this, however, is not the opinion of Tischendorf . 

In addition, a just idea of the effect of the various readings on the sense of the 
text may be formed by consulting the interesting translation which M. Rilliet has 
made of the precious manuscript of the Vatican. To the version of this ancient 
copy, M. Rilliet has added those of the various readings furnished by the Latin 
Vulgate, and by the Greek manuscripts as late as the tenth century. 



PRESERVATION OF THE ORIGINAL TEXT. 



559 



ceived strength to conceive seed when she was past age." Chap. 
xL 13 — for "having seen them afar off, were persuaded of them, 
and embraced" he reads, " having seen them afar off and em- 
braced them!' Chap. xii. 26 — for "shall be stoned or thrust 
through with a dart," he reads, "shall be stoned." Chap. xiii. 9 
— for " be not carried hither and thither" he reads, " be not 
carried." 

In a word, as we have said, of the 7959 verses of the New 
Testament, there are hardly ten or a dozen in which all the cor- 
rections occasioned by the new readings of Griesbach, Scholz, 
Lachmann, Teschendorf, Tregelles, and many others, in conse- 
quence of their immense researches, are of any weight ; and even 
eight of these twelve corrections consist only in the difference of 
a single word, and sometimes even of a single letter. We have 
enumerated them elsewhere, and shall not go over them again. 

614. Such, then, has been the astonishing preservation of the 
sacred text through so many ages — such is the testimony of the 
manuscripts ; and it is thus that the science which has collected 
them has exhibited to our view a magnificent monument of the 
ever-active Providence which watches over the Scriptures, and 
which has resolved to preserve with the same sovereignty the 
oracles of the New Testament, as it has guarded those of the Old. 

615. What, then, do we infer from all this as to the Sacred 
Volume ? 

Our inference is, if it is fully demonstrated that the God of the 
Scriptures has watched over the text of the book, it is impossible 
to doubt that He has watched over its canon ; for, assuredly, if 
there is a Providence to guard the words, there must also be a 
Providence to guard the books. 

_ Such is our ninth fact : we now proceed to the tenth. 



CHAPTER XL 



THE STRIKING CONTRAST BETWEEN THE ERROES OF ROME REGARD- 
ING THE OLD TESTAMENT, AND ITS FIDELITY REGARDING THE 
NEW. 

616. Fact the Tenth. — Another historical feature will again bril- 
liantly illustrate that secret action of Providence, and shew us, 
that if, to guard the Scriptures, it has watched over the Jewish 
people for 3300 years, it has equally kept in obedience, on this 
point, the most corrupt Churches for these eighteen centuries. 

This tenth fact, can it be believed, is the Apocrypha, and the 
errors of Rome regarding it. We must explain our meaning. 

The guardianship of the Old Testament has not been intrusted 
to it, but only that of the New, as it has to all the other Churches 
in the world ; God having pledged Himself, as we have said, to 
take care from age to age, on the one hand, that the people of the 
Jews even in their worst days, and on the other, that the Churches 
of Christendom, even the most corrupt, shall remain faithful to 
their trust. The oracles of God have been intrusted to them. 

But the historical fact we wish to point out here is the striking 
contrast between the errors of Rome regarding the Old Testament, 
and her immovable fidelity regarding the canon of the New. 

Has sufficient attention been paid to this surprising fact ? How 
has it happened that neither the fathers of the Council of Trent 
nor others after them have ever done, or wished to do, for the New 
Testament what they have effected so easily and so completely for 
the Old ? Humanly speaking, it would have been much more for 
their advantage in their controversies with us to have mutilated 
the volume of the New Testament. Moreover, the undertaking 
would have been at once more plausible, more easy, and more 



THE APOCEYPHA SANCTIONED BY EOME. 



561 



defensible. How comes it to pass that they have never done it ? 
Who has deprived them of the power, and who of the will ? 

617. We recollect the astonishing facility with which the attempt 
of April 8, 1546, was effected, and the still more astonishing servility 
employed to sanction it, at least by silence, in the whole body of 
the Latin churches. When Paul III. had sent his three legates to 
Trent, in March 1545, to open a council, designed, it was thought, 
to reform the oecumenical Church in its chiefs and its members, 
they found, as we have said elsewhere, 1 only the bishop of the 
place and, a few clays after, three Italian bishops. Two months 
more passed away before they were recruited by twenty other 
prelates ; so that, ashamed of opening a general council with 
twenty-seven persons, they besought the Pope to adjourn it for 
eight months. But in December, their number being increased 
by twenty-six ecclesiastics, they ventured at last to open the 
assembly with three legates, three abbots, four generals of reli- 
gious orders, and four archbishops, two of whom, however, were 
pensioners of the Pope, having been sent to Trent only to make a 
majority in favour of the legates, being only titular bishops. 

The three first sessions were devoted solely to preliminaries ; but 
with the fourth, on the 8th of April, the anathemas commenced ; 
and it was then that, in the name of the universal Church, eleven 
uninspired books, which the whole ancient Church had rejected 
from the collection of inspired books, though recommending the 
reading of them, were declared to be infallible, and put on a level 
with Moses and the Prophets. 

These eleven books, or parts of books, composed after the spirit 
of prophecy had ceased in Israel, rejected by all the Jewish nation, 
rejected by Jesus Christ and His apostles, rejected by the ancient 
fathers, and still rejected by the great so-called orthodox Church 
of the East, as they were fourteen hundred years before by St 
Jerome himself — that Jerome who is the oracle of the Latins for 
the Scriptures, and the author of their Vulgate Bible ; and while 
we have seen, in 451, the general Council of Chalcedon, consisting 
of six hundred and thirty bishops, reject the Apocrypha, 2 — we see 

1 Prop. 69. See also Fra Paoli Sarpi Hist, de Concile de Trcute, liv. ii., § 6, 
1736, torn. 1., p. ISO, and following. 2 Confirming the Council of Laodicea. 

2 N 



562 



FACTS KELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



the Council of Trent, which counted only fifty, declare them Divine, 
fifteen centuries later ! 

If, then, this enormous alteration in the oracles of God by the 
leaders of the Church of Kome appears to have succeeded with so 
little effort and so much promptitude, do we not see that it 
would have been easy for them, humanly speaking, to have sub- 
jected the New Testament to the same outrage as the Old, if God 
had not checked their thoughts and held back their hands ? 

And what renders the contrast more wonderful is, that if the 
facility for committing the outrage was great, the temptation 
seemed much greater. 

618. We know that the principal reasons which impelled the 
fathers of the council to this attempt were their difficulties in 
their controversies with us. 

When, to defend purgatory, the merit of works, prayers of the 
dead for the living, and of the living for the dead, by passages of 
Scripture, they could find only texts from Baruch,! the Maccabees, 2 
Tobit, 3 or Ecclesiasticus, 4 it had always been very embarrassing and 
painful for them that it could be replied, " But in favour of these 
new doctrines you have only uninspired (human) books." It would, 
therefore, free them from a very great difficulty, to be able to cite 
an oecumenical decree which " transubstantiated, without alteration 
of the species/' the eleven apocryphal books into inspired ones, and 
which invisibly changed all these writings, hitherto human, into 
infallible Scriptures. 

61 9. But let us here remark how much greater must have been 
the temptation in reference to the New Testament for Rome to 
have taken away one of its writings, or to have added some other. 

For example, what can be more opposed to the primacy of 
Rome, or to the doctrine of the mass, than the Epistle of St Paul 
to the Hebrews ? Do we not recollect what trouble it gave to the 
great Bossuet, to what adroitness of language his admirable talent 
had recourse, either in his Explanation of the Apocalypse, to 
elude what St John tells us of Rome under the name of Babylon, 

1 Chap. iii. 4, (according to the Vulgate.) See 0. B. Fritzsche Handbuch zu 
den Apokryphen der A. T., i., 188, Leipz., 1851. 

2 2 Maccabees xii. 42. 8 Tobit xii. 11, 12. 
4 Ecclesiasticus i. 13, 19; iii. 3. 



FIDELITY OF RO^IE TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 563 

or in his Exposition of the Catholic Faith, to escape the over- 
powering declarations of the Epistle to the Hebrews against an 
unbloody expiation, or a sacrifice of Christ many times offered, 
or many times repeated ? What an advantage would it have 
been to the Romanist doctors to get rid of these two books of 
Scripture ? They might have justified the exclusion of one of them 
by the long hesitation of the Western churches before the fixation 
of the canon, and, above all, by the long differences of Rome on 
this subject while, on the other hand, they might have justified 
the exclusion of the Apocalypse by its style, its obscurities,- and 
especially by the long opposition made to it in the East by the 
adversaries of the millennium ? 

620. But further, besides the thought of curtailine; the canon, 
what a strong temptation existed to make additions to it. 

To add, for example, some books favourable to the worship of 
Mary — another on the power of the bishops — another on the 
merit of works — another on the primacy of Peter. To add even the 
excellent Epistle of Clement, the first bishop of Rome. To add the 
Apostolic Canons, which Eusebius and Jerome appear to have 
attributed to the same father ; 2 or his pretended Recognitions, called 
also The Acts of Peter, or some apocryphal Gospel favourable to 
the worshippers of the Virgin Mary ; or, again, the Epistle of Peter 
to James, contained in the Homilies of the same Clement, and which 
are to be found inserted in the false decretals of the Popes. 3 

Against all such attempts, as against that of April 8, 1546, no 
doubt the voice of the Eastern Church would have been raised, 
with that of the Ancient Church, and of the Reformed Churches. 

But at least there would not have been against it, as in the 
case of the Apocrypha, the direct testimony of Jesus Christ, who, 
if He could say nothing on the yet future canon of the New 
Testament, has said much on that of the Old. Besides, there was 
in its favour the hesitation of the churches, before the final fixa- 
tion of the canon, while the history of the Old Testament does 
not furnish, directly at least, any analogous fact as to the formation 
of its own canon. 

1 See Propp. 622-625. 

2 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., vi., 13. Jerome, De Script., cap. xv. 

3 Cave, Hist. Litt. Scriptor. Eccl., i., p. 30. (Basilese, 1741.) 



564 FACTS KELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

621. We see, then, that there was antecedently every reason, 
humanly speaking, to expect that the doctors of Rome, if they 
made any attempt against the Scriptures, would undertake it 
rather against the New Testament than the Old. For what reason 
has the contrary happened ? For what reason has there been such 
eagerness for the one, such modest abstinence from the other? 
What has been wanting that they should not dare to do here 
what they have dared to do elsewhere with so much success ? 
Facility has not been wanting, as we have said ; temptation has 
not been wanting ; nor the servility of bishops, nor the servility 
of their flocks. Let us answer with the Word — the difference 
comes from on high. The oracles of God contained in the Old 
Testament were intrusted to the Jews, good or bad, and not to 
Christians ; the oracles of God contained in the New Testament 
are confided to Christian churches, good or bad. 

There is no other answer ; let us not attempt any other. In the 
one case God loosens the reins, in the other He holds them in ; and, 
since the fixation of the canon, He has never permitted any church 
in Christendom to vacillate in its testimony. However learned 
or however ignorant it may be, He deprives it of the power or of 
the will, so that you may almost say of Christian churches what 
J osephus said of the Jews, " Never did any dare to take away, or 
add, or transpose anything." 1 The churches, then, have been faith- 
ful to their trust for the last 1500 years, as the Jewish people have 
been to theirs for the last thirty-four centuries ; God controlling on 
this one point the indocility of both, by an influence to which they 
are subject without feeling it. And just as God, to render this 
fidelity of the Jews more manifestly providential, exhibits it to us 
in the midst of their constant revolt ; so, to render the fidelity of 
the Church of Rome respecting the New Testament more divinely 
significant, and, at the same time, to confound her foolish assump- 
tion of being the infallible interpreter of both Testaments, God 
has given her up, in regard to the Old Testament, with which she 
was not intrusted, to a spirit of error ; so that, if with one hand 
she deposits impurity in the collection of Moses and the prophets, 
with the other she still holds out to us, in their perfect integrity, 

1 Contra Apion., i., p. 1037. Aureliae Allob., p. 999. Theopneustia, p. 186, 
2d ed. ; (1842.) See before, Propp. 435, 457. 



FIDELITY OF ROME TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



565 



all the oracles of the New Testament, in which her revolt is found 
predicted as that of the Jewish people was in the oracles of the 
Old Testament. 

Let us, then, repeat once more, that in this tenth fact God de- 
monstrates afresh that providence which watches over the canon 
But there is still another fact — the destinies of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews. 



CHAPTER XII. 



the destinies of the epistle to the hebrews. 

Section First. 

the variations of rome three times in three 
hundred years. 

622. Fact the Eleventh. — If you compare the astonishing varia- 
tions of the Latin churches on the subject of this book during the 
three first centuries of Christianity, with their immovable firmness 
during the fifteen centuries that have elapsed since Jerome's 
time to our own, you will be forced to recognise again the inter- 
vention of an invisible power in this inexplicable contrast. For 
one firmly-established historical fact 1 is, first of all, that the 
canonicity of this scripture, constantly maintained in the East 
down to the present day, was equally maintained in the West 
during the century and a half that followed its first appearance. 
And then another historical fact is not less established, that after 
this century and a half the Latin churches, but especially that of 
Rome, allowed themselves to be prejudiced against the epistle, and 
rejected it for another century and a half. 

The first of these two facts is abundantly attested, as to the 
first century and the beginning of the second, by the epistle of 
Clement ; and, as to the end of the second and the beginning of 
the third, by the work, recently discovered, of Hippolytus the 
martyr. 

But the second of these two facts is not less attested by con- 
temporary authors, among others by Eusebius, 2 Jerome, 3 and 



1 See Prop. 300, &c. 2 Hist. Eccles., iii., 3. 

3 De Viris Illustribus, cap. lix. : — Cajus sub Zephyrino — disputationem adversus 



THE DESTINIES OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 567 

Philastrius. Now, this error of the Latin churches was begun 
under Zephyrinus, bishop of Rome, (from 202 to 219,) and under 
Calistus, his successor, (from 219 to 223,) by a priest of that city 
named Caius, whom Eusebius has often cited, and who, in a famous 
dispute with the Montanists, was the first to question the Pauline 
authorship of this epistle, on account of the advantages it seemed 
to give his adversaries in their ardent disputes about discipline. 
From the time of Caius, the credit of the epistle among the Latins 
rapidly diminished ; and while in the East they firmly persisted 
in holding it to be canonical and written by Paul, the churches 
of the West, and especially that of Rome, ceased to read it in 
their assemblies or to regard it as an inspired book. 

We wish you to recollect the testimonies, already cited, of Jerome 
and Eusebius, and add to them that of Philastrius, the intimate 
friend of Ambrose, in 380. In his book Be Haeresibus, at the 
34th article, entitled "Heresy of some persons on the subject of 
the Epistle of Paid to the Hebrews'' — "Some persons also," he says, 
? maintain that it is not his." "They read in the church only his 
thirteen epistles, and sometimes that to the Hebrews." 

623. Such, then, have been three times in the course of three 
hundred years the variations of Rome on this important subject ; 
until at last the hour for the providential fixation of the canon 
having struck, all the Latin churches, as if by concert, embraced 
the orthodox testimony of the Eastern churches, and thus, by a 
new revolution, returned to the sound doctrine of the canon. 

Section Second, 
the firmness of rome since the fixation of the canon. 

624. Now, then, I ask — After such great changes of opinion, 
happening at so short a distance from the days of the apostles, 
and at a time much less impure than subsequent ages, was there 
not reason to expect that these same Latin churches would vacil- 
late still more in the course of ages ? And is not the immovable 
firmness exceedingly striking which they have shewn for the fif- 

Proculum, Montani sectatorem valde insignem habuit. . . et in eoclem volu- 
mine epistolas Pauli tredecim tantum enumerans, elicit ejus non esse ; sed et ajned 
Romanos usque hodie quasi Pauli apostoli non habetur." 



568 



FACTS KELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



teen centuries that have elapsed between Jerome's time and ours? 
Whence, then, this contrast? so much inconstancy in these better 
days — so much fidelity in the worst ? Whence came this heresy 
(as Philastrius calls it) — a heresy so precocious, in a church visited, 
and almost founded, so short a time before, by the very author of 
the epistle, and governed after him by his disciple Clement ? 
Whence came it, only a hundred years after Clement, who had 
himself in Eome so often cited this epistle, (as we have seen,) and 
yet at a time when the whole East remained invariably faithful 
to it? And afterwards, how came it to pass that there was so 
prompt and universal a return to the truth that had been aban- 
doned for a century and a half ? But let us say more — for here 
is what more than all is inexplicable without Divine intervention — 
How comes it to pass that henceforward, during the course of fifteen 
hundred years, these same churches, in times far more corrupt than 
those of Jerome, have never hestitated again in their testimony, 
notwithstanding they have erred on so many other points ? 

This epistle, so long regarded as inspired, then rejected for a 
century and a half, is all at once, by a spontaneous movement — 
without any human mandate — without premeditated concert — 
everywhere received again a second time as canonical. And then, 
what is still more extraordinary, from that moment to our own 
days, this question has been no longer a matter of doubt in any 
church. Among the Latin churches, that were so long refractory, 
there has been no hesitation for fifteen hundred years ; and if too 
often, the Caiuses of former times may be seen again publishing 
their scepticism about some book of the New Testament, you will 
not find a single church that will listen to or follow them, now the 
canon has been providentially fixed ! 

625. We assert once more, for the eleventh time, that this comes 
from on high ; and we think that no one can give any other ade- 
quate and satisfactory answer. Cod has guaranteed His written 
Word, for the simple reason that it was Cod who formed it ; and 
to accomplish this object, He stretched forth one hand invisibly 
over the synagogues, and the other over the churches. 

" The living oracles have been intrusted to them." 



THE DESTINIES OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 



569 



Section Thied. 

two considerations which render this proof more striking. 

626. When, in reading history, you come to this vacillation in 
the Latin churches during the times of Caius and Pope Zephy- 
rinus, 1 you will generally find the two following reasons given for 
it. It was owing, in part, it is said, to the degeneracy of the 
empire at this epoch, especially in the capital of the empire, and 
under the vicious but tolerant reigns of Commoclus, Caracalla, and 
Heliogabalus. The Christians, protected by Marcia, the mistress 
of Commodus, and by Mammaea, the aunt of Heliogabalus, became 
wealthy and corrupt ; while the bishops of Eome, Zephyrinus and 
Callistus, (under whom Caius flourished,) were very far from being 
what the False Decretals and the Eoman Breviary have made them, 
saints and martyrs, whose feasts are to be celebrated on August 26 
and October 14. On the testimony of Hippolytus, 2 their contem- 
porary, Callistus and Zephyrinus were most despicable men, the 
one for his avarice and venality, the other for his greediness and 
malpractices. But if this decay of the Latin Church in the third 
century will account in part for its error respecting the Epistle to 
the Hebrews, how much more wonderful is its universal return to 
sound doctrine in the more corrupt times of Jerome ; and still 
more, its unshaken firmness in the twelve still darker ages between 
Jerome and the Eeformation ? 

627. The second reason given by the fathers for the relinquish- 
ment of this epistle by the churches of the West, was the anxiety 
of the Latin doctors, in their controversies, to get rid of some pas- 
sages which unfortunately seemed to them to favour the error of 
the Montanists and Novatianists. But how much more seductive 
must this evil temptation to reject the epistle have become, some 
centuries later, when its powerful opposition to all the doctrines 
of the mass became apparent ? when it was discovered with what 
copiousness and precision Paul had combated beforehand, in this 

1 Hieron, De Viris Illustrib., cap. lix. 

2 Kara naacov aipeaioov eXey^o?. See Bunsen's Hippolytus and his Age, (Fivo 
Letters to Archdeacon Hare,) vol. i., p. 126-131. Callistus, the protege of Zephy- 
rinus, was condemned to the mines in Sardinia, not for his faith, but his frauds. 



570 



FACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



admirable epistle, the very recent doctrine in which it was daringly 
asserted that the priests, as sacrificers in the place of Jesus Christ, 
offer to God daily on a hundred thousand altars, for the sins of the 
living and the dead, the true flesh and true divinity of Christ, and 
this as really as they were offered to Him the first time by Christ 
Himself on the cross of Golgotha I 1 — a doctrine by which the 
enemy endeavours to turn away our regards from the death of 
Jesus Christ, and to substitute for them a magic miracle performed 
by the priest ! Is it possible to erect a new altar without over- 
turning that of the cross, on which Jesus Christ offered Himself 
once, as a sacrifice for our sins, with an eternal efficacy ? Do we 
not destroy His testament of grace, in which He assures us of the 
remission of our sins, if we substitute for it another made by a mere 
human being ? Do we not destroy His real and perpetual priest- 
hood, if we place in its room miserable sinners ? and is not such 
an act an attempt at snatching Him from the right hand of the 
Father, where He is seated for ever as an only priest, merciful, 
compassionate, faithful, hoty, without spot, separate from sinners, 
made higher than the heavens, and Mediator between God and 
man ? 

628. I ask, then, might it not be expected, with such a doctrine 
preached everywhere, that in the course of so many ages a great 
number of Caiuses would spring up in the Roman Church, to ask 
a second time for the rejection of this dangerous Epistle to the 
Hebrews as impossible to be apostolic ? — this epistle, in which the 
mass is beforehand so powerfully condemned ? this epistle, in which 
it is said of Christ so repeatedly, that " He offered Himself up once," 
(vii. 27 ;) that " He was once offered to bear the sins of many, and 
will appear unto them that look for Him the second time without 
sin unto salvation," (ix. 28 ;) that " He is a priest for ever, after 
the order of Melchisedec," (v. 6, ix. 12 ;) and that "having offered 
one sacrifice for sin, He has sat down for ever at the right hand 
of God," (x. 11, 12;) that He possesses an unchangeable, intrans- 
missible priesthood, (vii. 24 ;) that " by one offering He hath for 
ever perfected them that are sanctified," (x. 14 ;) because "where 
there is remission of sins, there is no more offering for sin," 

1 Missale Romanum (Oblatio Hostiae) : — "Suscipe, Sancte Pater," &c. 



THE DESTINIES OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBKEWS. 



571 



(x. 18 ;) in a word, He does not offer Himself many times, "for then 
He must often have suffered since the foundation of the world, but 
now once, in the consummation of the ages, He hath appeared to 
put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself," (ix. 26.) 

629. Now, after reading so many precise declarations so often 
repeated, and with an intention so manifestly prophetic, how could 
you have thought it possible, when the mass had become prevalent, 
that such a practice and the Ejoistle to the Hebrews could subsist 
together for ten years only in the same church ? Could it be 
thought possible that Eome, after having, against the judgment 
of the whole Eastern Church, rejected this book for a century 
and a half, (when as yet she was entirely ignorant of the sacrifice 
of the mass and the adoration of the host,) should undertake to 
guard it for fourteen hundred years down to our days, after she 
had set forth all those doctrines which destroy the supper of 
the Lord, deny His priesthood, turn away our regards from His 
expiatory death, and substitute the magical and material miracle 
of transubstantiation for the spiritual and majestic miracle of 
grace by which the believer, and the believer only, divinely eats 
the flesh and divinely drinks the blood of his Saviour ? 1 

630. What, then, shall we say to these things ? We shall say 
that here again, what, according to all probability, must needs 
happen, has not happened, and what, humanly speaking, ought 

1 The miracle, as the priest understands it, causes this Divine body to be eaten 
by unbelievers, and even by animals. " Si hostia consecrata dispareat" says the 
Roman Missal, "ab aliquo animali accepta," (De Defectu Panis, iii., 7;) while we say, 
as St Augustan has often said, that " to eat this food is to abide in Christ, and to 
have Him abiding in us ; because to believe in Him is to eat the bread of life. 
Why dost thou prepare the teeth and the stomach ? Believe, and thou hast eaten." 
(In Ev. Joh., cap. vL, Tract, xxv.) "Hoc est manducare illam escam — in Christo 
manere et ilium manentum in ee habere. Ut quid paras dentes et ventrem ? 
Crede et manducasti." (Ibid., Tract, xxv.) " Quomodo in coelum manum mittam, 
ut ibi sedentem teneam ? Fidem mitte et tenuisti." (In Ev. Joh., cap. xi. et xii. 
Tract, iv.; Edit. Bened., Paris, 1659, torn, iii, pp. 630, 490, 501, 4911.) 

And again (August., De Doctr. Chr., lib. iii., p. 52) : — " Si praeceptiva locutio 
est, aut flagitium aut facinus vetans, non cxtfgurata. Si autem flagitia aut facinus 
videtur jubere, ficjurata est. Nisi manducaveritis, inquit, carnem filii hominis, 
non habebitis vitam in vobis; facinus videtur aut flagitium jubere. Figura cryo 
est ; praecipiens passioni Domini esse communicaudum, et suaviter atque utilitcr 
recondendum in memoria, quod pro nobis caro ejus crucifixa est et vulnerata." 



572 



FACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



not to take place, has been accomplished. We shall say that, in 
the strange course of events relative to the Epistle to the Hebrews 
in the Latin Church, before, and during, and after the providential 
fixation of the canon, there has been most manifestly a testimony 
of that divine agency which protects the Scriptures. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE GREAT MANIFESTATIONS OF THAT PROVIDENCE "WHICH PRE- 
SERVES THE ORACLES OF GOD, RENDERING IT VISIBLE ON 
THREE OCCASIONS IN THE STORMY TIMES OF DIOCLETIAN, 
OF CHARLES V., AND OF NAPOLEON L 

631. We may see from time to time in history, both before and 
since the coming of Jesus Christ, some of those splendid dispen- 
sations in which, if I may venture to use the language of Isaiah, 
"Jehovah makes bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations," 
(Is. lii. 10,) and forces all the ends of the earth to acknowledge 
that He takes in hand the cause of His written Word, and, after 
having given it by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven, He 
will shake the whole world, if need be, in order to preserve it from 
aoje to age for His elect, to restore it to them when it seems lost, 
and finally to spread it over all the earth. 

Without speaking of the great things accomplished under the 
old covenant, we shall confine ourselves to those that have been 
done under the new, and of these latter we shall specify three. 
We grant that all three do not apply, like the preceding, to the 
details of the canon ; but all three alike strikingly exhibit that 
watchful power which guards the Scriptures. It has changed the 
world, it has created the Church, it has regenerated the elect to 
the life of God, and it is no strange work to expect from Him 
when the point in question is to preserve it for them. 

Section First. 

632. Fact the Twelfth. — The first of these three great divine 
interventions is the wonderful preservation of the Scriptures at 



574 



THE GKEAT MANIFESTATIONS OF PEOVIDENCE. 



the end of the unheard of persecutions which marked the begin- 
ning of the fourth century, in the days of Diocletian, and which 
preceded the triumphs of Christianity. 

All the potentates of the earth were at that time combined 
with the same fury against the people of God, and all of them 
having alike recognised that what gave them energy, and life, 
and powerful unity, was the Holy Word, they manifested the 
same fury against the Bibles of Christians as against their per- 
sons, in order to give them to the flames and to destroy them. 

This unparalleled crisis, which shook the whole known world, 
and deluged it with the blood of the saints, began on Good 
Friday in the year 303. 

It remains unparalleled in history for its extent, its duration, its 
intensity, and its means of success. Its extent was what was 
then called the whole world ; there appeared to be a general 
combination for the ruin of Christianity and its sacred books. 
Its duration was for ten long years. All kinds of punishment 
were employed ; there was a deluge of Christian blood ; the two 
empires of the East and the West devoted themselves at once to it 
under the united efforts of all their Csesars and all their emperors 
— Diocletian, Maximian, Maxentius, Galerius, Maximin, Licinius 
— all joined in the work, as well as the vast empire of the Persians 
under the cruel Sapor. While the Holy Scriptures were every- 
where committed to the flames in public places, the blood of all 
who persisted in avowing the Christian name — men, women, and 
young children — flowed by horrible punishments at the same time 
in Armenia, in Egypt, in the Thebais, even to Mauritania, in 
Mesopotamia, at Tyre, at Gaza, in Cappadocia, in Pontus, in 
Gaul, in Pannonia, in Spain, in the island as far as Britain. In 
Egypt alone a million victims were computed to have lost their 
lives. 

The imperial edicts were first published in the city of Nicomedia 
on the morning of the 28th of March, in the nineteenth year of 
Diocletian, and were immediately sent to the Eastern and Western 
empires. They enjoined first of all that in every place the Sacred 
Books should be burnt, — that all the bishops and priests should be 
cast into prison, — that every Christian should be immediately 



THE DIOCLETIAN PERSECUTION. 



575 



deprived of every public office, — and that all should be required, 
under pain of death, to deny Jesus Christ, to give up their copies 
of the Scriptures, and to sacrifice to the gods. These edicts were 
immediately put into execution in all quarters, beginning at Nico- 
media, where twenty thousand believers were put to death, and 
were the occasion everywhere else of unheard of cruelties. "We 
have seen with our own eyes the inspired and Sacred Scriptures 
delivered to the flames in the public places/' says the learned 
Eusebius. 1 He was at that time in Egypt, and tells us as an 
eyewitness 2 of the punishments of all kinds with their horrible 
details, to which multitudes of believers were subjected who were 
resolved not to give up the Holy Word, but to confess their Master 
to their last breath. After being scourged, they were delivered up 
to ferocious beasts, and to tortures of all kinds. If any one would 
wish to form an idea of these infernal cruelties let him read the 
letter of Phileas, bishop of Thmois, in which he describes them to 
the people of his charge. 3 In MesojDotamia the martyrs were hung 
with their heads downwards over a slow fire ; in Cappadocia they 
dislocated their limbs ; in Syria they drowned them ; at Tyre they 
were thrown to wild beasts ; in Arabia they were beheaded ; in 
Phrygia they burnt them alive by whole families in their houses. 
In Rome, during the games in the circus, all the people were heard 
to cry out a dozen times, " Let the Christians be put to death !" and 
the emperor as often replied, " There are no more Christians." The 
abjurations, in all places, in sight of the tortures prepared for them, 
were innumerable ; and the emperors themselves might hope, like 
Louis XIV. in the time of the dragonnades, that they had destroyed 
for ever those whom they persecuted. The number of the 7rapaS6rai 
or traditores (as those were called who gave up their Bibles) ap- 
peared immense, and their cowardice gave birth in Africa after a 
while to the Donatists. Hosts of bishops, priests, and deacons, 
were seen to waver when they beheld the instruments of punish- 
ment, and thousands of men and women, of rich and poor, all alike 

1 Hist. Eccl., viii., 2 : — Tas 8e tuOtovs kci\ lepus ypu(pas Kara peaas dyopus wp\ 
napabiSupevas airoU eneidopev 6<p6ciKpo1s. 

3 Ibid., viiL, 7 : — Oh yiyvopevois <a\ airol naprjfMv. 
3 Ibid., viii., 10. 



576 THE GEEAT MANIFESTATIONS OF PKOVIDENCE. 

terrified, threw on the altar of the gods the grain of incense which 
had been forced into their hands. 

633. The evil-doers might believe that they had attained their 
object ; but while the Church by this sifting of fire got rid of a 
multitude of unconverted professors, and came forth purified, the 
Holy Scriptures were also seen, thrown into the flames with a great 
number of religious books that have never been recovered, and of 
which the greater part probably were an encumbrance rather than 
an advantage, the Holy Scriptures we say issued from these flames 
more efficacious, more valued, and better understood, than ever. 

The persecutors would not thus judge. Reckoning, on the one 
hand, the crowd of bishops and their flocks, whom the prospect of 
a cruel death had caused to apostatise, and on the other the great 
number of invincible martyrs who had been utterly destroyed by 
capital punishments, they took no account of a concealed but 
immense multitude of persons, on whom their examples, as well as 
the secret testimonies of the Holy Word, had operated in silence, 
and who were preparing in their turn to stand up for their Re- 
deemer. Their enemies might think they had annihilated the 
Church, and finished the Word of God from the earth. Chris- 
tianity seemed for a time to have no footing in the world. The 
emperors frequently congratulated themselves upon it, from the 
height of their thrones, and in the solemn assemblies of the Senate. 
They flattered themselves with having so completely annihilated it 
that they caused medals to be struck (which are still extant) 1 in 
commemoration of their triumph over the odious superstition, and 
erected monumental columns, which have been discovered recently 
even in Spain, with this inscription, " Exstincto nomine Cheis- 
tianoeum," "the name of the Christians being everywhere extin- 
guished, and their superstition banished from the world/' 

634. Such at that time was the almost total destruction of our 
sacred books, that, at the present day, there scarcely a copy can 
be found in the whole world, of a date anterior to those bloody 
days, or even contemporaneous. Among all the Greek manu- 
scripts of the New Testament, amounting to eleven hundred, that 
sacred criticism has been able to recover in all the libraries of 
Europe, Egypt and Asia, not a single one can be met with that 

1 "Nomine Christianorum deleto." See Milner, Church History, 1816, p. 6. 



THE DIOCLETIAN PERSECUTION. 



577 



goes back to the time of this persecution. All have disappeared ; 
and our most ancient Greek manuscripts are only very late tran- 
scriptions of a small number of copies that escaped the imperial 
fury. 

The Alexandrian manuscripts in the British Museum, (A of 
Griesbach) is not earlier, Michaelis 1 says, than the end of the 
fourth century, because it contains the epistle of Athanasius to 
Marcellinus on the Psalms. The Vatican manuscript (B of Gries- 
bach) is also not earlier than the same epoch ; Montfaucon and 
Bishop Marsh even believe it to be of the fifth or sixth century, 
and Dupin of the seventh. The Cambridge manuscript, or 
Beza's, 2 (D,) is referred to the sixth century by its warmest parti- 
sans ; that of Clermont, (D,) to the sixth century by Griesbach ; 
that of Ephrem, (C Palimpsest,) to the seventh by Marsh ; and that 
of Oxford, or Laud's, (E of Griesbach,) to the same century. These 
are the most ancient. 3 

635. But in the midst of this dreadful tempest, destined to 
glorify the Church by purifying it, and the Holy Word by raising 
it as from the sepulchre, Heaven was at last seen to interpose by a 
succession of rapid and severe judgments ; all the persecutors 

1 Michaelis, Introduction, ii., 141. (French translation.) 

2 So called because presented by Beza to the University of Cambridge in 1581. 

3 In the month of April last year, (1859,) M. Tischendorf announced to the 
learned world, in the Augsburg Gazette, the rich discovery he had just made, at 
Mount Sinai, of a very beautiful and ancient Greek manuscript of the Old and 
New Testaments. He placed it without hesitation in the first rank, above all the 
manuscripts possessed in the present day, for its antiquity, careful execution, and 
perfect preservation. He believes it belongs to the first half of the fourth century. 
It has been deposited at St Petersburg, and a fac-simile is expected to be made 
of it within three years. It is written on 346 very large sheets of fine parchment, 
and the text is arranged on every sheet in four columns. 

In our 43d Prop., mentioning the fifty copies of the Divine Scriptures, splendidly 
copied by the care of Eusebius of Caesarea, at the request and expense of the 
Emperor Constantine, I said how precious a prize it would be if, by one of those 
unforeseen occurrences reserved to the Church from time to time by the Divine 
goodness, one of these manuscripts, more ancient than any it possesses, could be 
discovered in some retreat hitherto unexplored. I was far from suspecting that, 
when writing those lines in the first part of this work, this favour would be so 
soon granted by the discovery of the Sinaitic manuscript. Yet I cannot venture 
to believe that this is one of those copies due to the care of Eusebius and the 
zeal of Constantine. The Russian Government, the Record says, (May I860,) has 
devoted 500,000 rubles to the printing of the manuscript. 

2 o 



578 



THE GEEAT MANIFESTATIONS OF PKOVIDENCE. 



were smitten by God ; and Lactantius had to write his famous book 
Be Mortibus Persecutorum. The Caesar Severus, so cruel towards 
the Christians, was betrayed and. strangled ; the Emperor Maxi- 
mian strangled himself ; the Emperor Galerius, arrested in his 
career of blood by a manifest stroke of Divine vengeance, felt 
himself obliged to acknowledge the hand of Divine retribution. 
Seized with an ulceration which spread over his whole body, 
and transported with rage, at first he ordered all his physicians to 
be put to death ; but soon, devoured by so many worms that they 
seemed inexhaustible, and unable to doubt that his condition 
bore the marks of Divine wrath, he revoked on his death-bed his 
edict of persecution. The Emperor Maxentius, put to the rout at 
the gates of Eome, fell with all his armour on into the waters of 
the Tiber ; and shortly after, the people of that capital, so often the 
witnesses of his cruelty, saw his head, hitherto so dreaded, carried 
into Eome at the end of a lance, and paraded from place to place 
with shouts of joy. Diocletian, obliged to see at last with his own 
eyes the hated triumph of Christianity, poisoned himself at Salona ; 
Eusebius, who was then living, assures us that his body, which was 
falling to pieces, struck him with horror, and the finger of God 
seemed as if visible in his dreadful death. But a still stranger 
malady seized the cruel Maximin, and shewed to every one that 
God had smitten him ; for a burning fire, obstinate and deeply- 
seated, which increased in spite of all remedies, and in its violence 
deprived him of eyesight, consumed him in such a manner, that 
his parched body seemed, Eusebius tells us, nothing better than a 
skeleton, or an infected sepulchre in which his soul was buried. 1 
He himself saw that an avenging God was the cause of his tor- 
ments ; he called for death, and it came not. Lastly, the cruel 
Licinius, defeated and dethroned, but pardoned by Constantine, 
attempted a fresh conspiracy, and was strangled. 

Yet while God thus visibly smote all these persecutors of Chris- 
tianity and the Holy Scriptures, He caused His word of truth to 
triumph. He honoured it by the most noble martyrs ; He over- 
threw for ever the gods of Olympus. Those false divinities, — 
adored and feared over all the earth from a remote antiquity, — 
fell before the Holy Scriptures like Dagon before the Ark ; and, 

1 Hist. Eccl., ix., 10. 



EESTOEATION OF CHRISTIANITY. 



579 



though adored from time immemorial in ten thousand temples, 
they vanished, even from the imaginations of men, like so many 
forgotten diseases. In a short time they would be spoken of only 
in games and fables. 

636. At the same time, honour was everywhere rendered to the 
written "Word. It was disinterred as from sepulchres in which 
it had been concealed. It was re-copied in every country with 
the greatest care, in order to circulate it in all directions. It was 
like Noah and his three sons coming forth from the ark after the 
deluge to repeople the earth. And only twelve years after this 
tremendous storm had ceased, the Emperor Constantine was seen, 
in the first general council of Christendom, placing the Bible on 
a throne in the midst of the assembly, to signify that it is, and 
must ever be, the sovereign rule of conscience, and the sole 
infallible judge of divine truth. 

637. In vain had all the powers of earth set themselves in 
array against the Church and against the Scriptures of God, 
"imagining vain things, and taking counsel together against 
Jehovah and against his Anointed " He that sitteth in the 
heavens laughed ; Jehovah had them in derision ; He spake to 
them in His wrath," (Ps. ii. 2, 4 ;) and all their rage only served 
more fully to display the Divine origin both of His Church and of 
His Word. This living and abiding Word has ever reappeared 
to change and to govern the world. 

" How is it," exclaims the pious Le Sueur, in his History of 
the Church and the Empire, " how is it that an immense number 
of other books, and even the works of the greatest men, and the 
most learned authors of antiquity, — those of the Chaldeans, of the 
Egyptians, the Arabians, the Greeks, and the Romans, — those 
writings which men studied with so much care, — have utterly 
perished ; and, on the contrary, the Holy Scriptures, the very 
memory of which so many tyrants have exerted themselves to 
annihilate, have come down to us entire and uninjured ? How is 
it, again, that the very histories of the most powerful empires have 
disappeared, while that of the despised people of Judea, and that 
of the establishment of the Church, more despised still, in its 
beginning as ancient as the world, has remained in its complete- 
ness ? Must we not," he adds, " acknowledge in all these facts 



580 THE GEEAT MANIFESTATIONS OF PROVIDENCE. 

that God, because this Holy Scripture proceeded from Him, has 
resolved, in spite of so many obstacles, to preserve it miraculously, 
not by arms or by human means, but by almost constant sufferings, 
and by His adorable providence ? " 

God, then, watches over His written Word. This is all that we 
wish to infer from this first dispensation in the days of Con- 
stantine. 

But there is a still more striking dispensation which changed 
afresh the face of the world in the times of the powerful Charles V. 
and of the brilliant Leo X. This was destined to manifest more 
than ever to the whole world the holy jealousy of God for His 
written Word, I refer to the blessed Keformation. 

Section Second, 
the reformation. 

638. Fact the Thirteenth. — The blessed Reformation, in all the 
regions where its voice could make itself heard, raised the Bible 
from the sepulchre in which, for 900 years, the traditions of men 
had held it entombed. 

In restoring it to the nations, it accomplished in a very few 
years, by means of this very Bible rescued from the tomb, the most 
powerful, the deepest, and the holiest of the religious revolutions 
which have agitated the world since the establishment of the 
gospel, and shewed, by most conspicuous signs, the care that God 
takes of His sacred canon. That revolution which placed Chris- 
tianity on the throne of the Caesars in the days of Constantine the 
Great was no doubt powerful, but rather as a sovereign act of 
Providence than as a work of the Holy Spirit ; while the Refor- 
mation was eminently a work of the Holy Word, and was accom- 
plished, above all, in the interior and spiritual government of the 
house of God. I do not refer to the human conflicts which fol- 
lowed it ; I refer to its origin, its primary characteristics, and the 
spiritual grandeur of its operations. 

We may denominate this unparalleled event the resurrection of 
the Scriptures by a Divine Power. That Power drew them from 
the sepulchre in spite of all the great ones of this world ; and 
when it had thus restored them co open day by a strong hand, it 



THE SCEIPTUEES EESTOEED AT THE EEEOEMATION. 



581 



immediately renewed, by means of them, the wonder of ancient 
days. That divine Word regenerated millions of souls to the life 
of faith ; it sustained even in the hour of punishment the multi- 
tude of martyrs who were dragged to the scaffold for the sole crime 
of having read it in the vulgar tongue ; it freed the half of Europe 
from the yoke of Rome ; it changed the face of the world. So 
that, to every serious person who studies closely the origin and 
primary development of this holy revolution, it became very evi- 
dent that God had placed Himself at the head of this vast move- 
ment, because He meant to maintain a Church on earth, and, in 
order to maintain it, it has been needful to restore from age to 
age His word of truth. 

639. This event is too well known in our days, even in its de- 
tails, 1 to require us to recall the history of it. But it is necessary 
that we should clearly understand all the force of its testimony in 
favour of the canon, and, for this purpose, we wish to point out 
the two principal facts that characterise it. First of all, it must 
be shewn to what extent the written Word, when the Reformation 
took place, had disappeared from the face of the earth, and that 
for 900 years. Then it must be considered with what power, 
evidently divine, I would say with what majestic unity, with what 
superhuman rapidity, with what holiness, with what an outstretched 
arm, the holy Reformation, from the moment it had drawn forth the 
written Word from its catacombs, and replaced it in a conspicuous 
position in the house of God, brought forth its most precious 
fruits, like those of ancient days. In a few years this Word, but 
just come forth from the sepulchre, and by means apparently the 
feeblest, was seen to rise like the sun in the firmament of the 
Reformed Churches, in order to become their supreme rule, and to 
prepare for the promised day when it shall govern the whole 
world, and all the tribes of the earth shall walk in the light of it. 

This twelfth proof does not refer, it is true, any more than the 
one before it, to the sixty-six books in detail which compose the 
canon, as is the case with the other proofs ; but in giving the 
testimony of God to the Bible as a whole, it obliges us to acknow- 

1 Especially by the admirable labours of my friend M, Merle d'Aubignd, whose 
volumes are read with the same vivid interest in the New and in the Old World, 
and by all classes. 



582 THE GEEAT MANIFESTATIONS OF PEOVIDENCE. 



ledge once more with what jealousy He sovereignly preserves from 
age to age the venerable collection of His sacred oracles. 

640. The Scriptures had at that time disappeared almost en- 
tirely from the face of the earth. This fact is perhaps not suffi- 
ciently known in our days. 

Ever since the year 400 of the Christian era, the invasions of 
the barbarians had occasioned in Europe that fatal forgetfulness 
of the Holy Word, which, of course, rapidly impoverished the 
spirituality of all the Western churches. The admirable Augustin, 
who had been their most brilliant light, and who was always dis- 
tinguished among them as the man of the Scriptures, drew his 
last breath at the approach of the Vandals, already masters of 
Africa, and encamped under the walls of Hippo. Already, within 
a quarter of a century, Alaric and his Goths had invaded Gaul, 
Spain, and Italy, and had burnt the city of Eome. Attila, with 
his Huns, only seventeen years after the death of Augustin, 
having laid waste Eastern Europe, as far as Thermopylae, passed 
on to the West. Then, immediately after him, the Vandals, under 
Genseric, crossing over into Sicily with 300,000 men, in their 
turn ravaged the imperial city. Only a quarter of a century later, 
Odoacer, coming from Pannonia with his Heruli, in 476, put an 
end to the empire of the West, was proclaimed king of Italy, and 
took possession of Eome. After him came the Lombards and the 
Franks. 

It will be readily understood that, in the midst of these commo- 
tions, secular learning and the study of the Scriptures were almost 
lost, even among the priests. The Latin Breviary, the Missal, tradi- 
tions, and human rites had taken their place. We may form some 
idea of what brilliant Italy had become in 680, when we read the 
answer of Pope Agathon to the Emperor Constantine Pogonatus, 
who had addressed to him an imperial injunction to send 
his deputies to the great oecumenical council which he himself 
had called in the capital of the East. 1 Agathon could not find in 
all Italy any theologian sufficiently versed in the Sacred Scriptures 
to undertake this office. " I beg you, my lord," he said, " to ac- 
cept our deputies, though indifferent scholars, and not sufficiently 
versed in the Holy Scriptures. And I do not conceal from you 

1 The sixth in Trullo, in 680. 



THE SCEIPTUEES EESTOEED AT THE REFORMATION. 583 

that to obtain a theologian, it would be necessary to seek for one in 
England, on account of the frequent incursions we have suffered 
from the barbarians." 1 

But later still matters became worse, as human traditions mul- 
tiplied ; for, henceforward, this ignorance of the Scriptures was 
succeeded by the most vivid distrust, and very soon by the most 
violent opposition against any use whatever of the holy book in 
the vulgar tongue. 

641. The use of the Scriptures, we have already seen, was 
severely interdicted ; through some ages it was forbidden under 
pain of death. Among the Vaudois, the Paulicians, the Albigen- 
ses, the poor men of Lyons, the Lollards, and the Bohemians, its 
powerful action upon their consciences had been recognised ; for, 
"as the loadstone always attracts iron, so," says Theodoret, "the 
Holy Scriptures will always and everywhere attract pious souls." 
And when it attracts them, it leads them to Jesus Christ, and 
makes them seek, at any price, eternal life. They no longer fear 
any menace of men ; and the reproach of Christ appears to them 
of far greater value than all the treasures of this world. 

The Bible in the vulgar tongue was become in the eyes of 
the priests a dangerous book ; " by perverse interpretations of 
which," as Leo XII. said, "the gospel of Christ is converted into 
the gospel of the devil/' 2 Consequently it was everywhere pro- 
hibited ; it vanished, as it were, underground ; it descended into 
the tomb. We shall not resume the consideration of those decrees 
of death promulgated first of all by the Council of Toulouse, and 
followed for five hundred years by innumerable punishments, in 
which the blood of the saints flowed like water. 3 

But, that every one may form a correct idea of what this death 
of the Scriptures was in Europe, and of that Divine power of the 
resurrection which delivered them from it, all must see at what 
cost the Bible issued from its tomb — issued, translated into all 
the vernacular languages of Europe, and came forth unveiled for all 
nations. 

1 Le Sueur, Histoire de l'Eglise et de l'Empire, part vi., p. 212; Geneve, 1672. 
3 See Prop. 558. 

3 We have sufficiently referred to these acts and decrees in Fropp. 552-557, 
560-563. 



584 



THE GREAT MANIFESTATIONS OF PROVIDENCE. 



For the men whom the Lord engaged first in this sacred conflict, 
this was at the cost of unheard-of privations, of constantly recur- 
ring dangers, and often, at last, of cruel punishments. See them 
in their places of exile, and in the most concealed retreats, suffering 
from hunger and cold, from reproach and poverty. It was by the 
light of funeral-piles that they studied that recovered Word, that 
they translated it in secret, that they printed and circulated it. 

Certainly, for such men it required a mighty influence from 
above, to choose such a life, and to prepare for such deaths. That 
Reformation which went forth to change the world, needed first of 
all to begin its holy work in their own hearts, by regenerating them, 
and establishing in them, by means of faith, that spiritual reign of 
righteousness, peace, and joy by the Holy Spirit, which alone 
renders the Christian capable of undertaking everything and suf- 
fering everything in the cause of his Redeemer. 

Follow these great men of God in their career for the first 
quarter of the sixteenth century. The hour prepared from above 
is arrived at once for many countries ; behold ! the Reformation 
is begun ! Very soon you will hear its mighty voice, like that of 
a roaring lion ; and in a few years the aspect of the world will be 
changed. " Send forth thy spirit, Jehovah, they are created : 
thou renewest the face of the earth . ... it is satisfied with the fruit 
of thy works," (Ps. civ. 30, 13.) See Zwinglius in Switzerland ! 
See Luther in Germany ! In spite of his safe- conduct, he came forth 
from Worms alive, but menaced with a thousand deaths : for thirty- 
six years after, and on the point of breathing his last, Charles V. 
declared that he repented of having respected his safe-conduct, and 
of having allowed him to live. See the reformer in his prison of 
the Wartburg : he has already translated the New Testament there, 
and very soon all the German population will be able to read it, 
from one end of Germany to the other. See Le Fevre, in the 
following year, translating it into French for the French. 1 See, 
again, in France, the poor but learned Olivetan, Calvin's cousin ; 
and see him with the poor Vaudois, who, in their extreme poverty, 
assist him with the means of publishing a cheap edition of his 
translation of the Bible ; and, apparently rich by their liberality, 
church after church, they tax themselves with the expenses of this 

1 In 1523. Luther's Bible did not appear till 1530. 



THE SCRIPTURES RESTORED AT THE REFORMATION. 585 

great work, and proceed to have it printed in the principality 
of Neufchatel, in Switzerland. 1 

See at the same time Tyndal, in England, fleeing from his native 
country never to return, concealing himself first in one city and 
then in another on the banks of the Rhine, from his persecutors, 
till at last he was enabled, according to his heart's desire, to give 
to the English, in Eno-lish, the Word of their God. See him till 
the day when, for having done this work, he will, by order of the 
king of England and the emperor of Germany, be hunted out, 
betrayed, thrown into prison, strangled, and burnt ! See his two 
fellow-labourers, Bilney and Frith, seized for the same crime, and 
burnt alive in England ! All three had been prepared by God for 
this task ; they were learned in the sacred languages ; with secular 
knowledge they had also faith ; and all three took their life in their 
hands to offer it to their Redeemer. But at last, behold the angel of 
the Reformation, who only waited till they had ended their work, 
to commence his own, and who made his mighty voice resound 
through all Europe like the roaring of a lion. Very soon thou- 
sands of confessors and martyrs will shew themselves in France, 
in Germany, in England, in Italy, in Flanders, in Belgium, in 
Holland, in Spain, in Poland, in Transylvania, in Bohemia, in 
Hungary, in Denmark and Sweden, and the world will appeal- 
shaken to its foundations. 

I confess that nothing has made me discern more vividly the 
Divine grandeur of this dispensation, and the profound interment 
from which the Scriptures then came forth, than to trace the 
labours and sufferings of these men of God in order to give His 
Holy Word to their generation. Trace Tyndal's career, and from 
him judge of all the rest. 

642. Having left the English universities, this young and 
learned scholar lived in peace, happy and respected, in the 
noble mansion of Sir John Walsh, where he discharged with 
credit the double office of chaplain and tutor. Sir John and 
Lady Walsh placed confidence in him, and took delight in hear- 
ing him speak of the gospel, with which lie had been power- 

1 By Peter de Vingle, June 4, 1535, in the little village of Serrieres. They 
taxed themselves for this heroic charity the enormous sum (for them) of 15U0 
gold crowns. (Leger, Hist, des Vaudois, p. 10'5.) 



586 THE GEE AT MANIFESTATIONS OF PEOVIDENCE. 



fully impressed by reading the Greek New Testament, which the 
learned Erasmus had just published at Bale in 1516, and brought 
it to England in 1519. No sooner was he converted than this 
heroic young man felt a resolution formed in his heart to renounce 
everything in order to translate and give to his countrymen the 
Scriptures of his God in English. " I will consecrate my life to 
it," he said, " and if necessary, I will sacrifice it ; " and when an 
English priest at Sir John Walsh's pointed out to him the danger 
from the laws of the Pope and the artfulness of the priests, he had 
the holy imprudence to reply, " For this I will set at defiance the 
Pope and all his laws ; for I vow, if God spare my life, that in 
England, before a few years are gone by, a ploughman shall know 
the Scriptures better than I do/' 1 He had preached the gospel 
fervently in the neighbourhood where he resided ; but seeing his 
labours too often rendered fruitless by the opposition of the priests, 
he said, " Assuredly it would be quite different if this poor people 
had the Scriptures. Without the Scriptures it is impossible to 
establish the laity in the truth." 

He was well aware that his life was in peril, and he was not 
willing that his noble friends should share those dangers which he 
was ready to brave alone. He resolved to leave. Only three years 
before, the same year in which he left Cambridge, the pious 
Thomas Mann had been burnt alive for having professed the doc- 
trine of the Lollards, which had now become his own ; so also a 
lady named Smith, the mother of several young children,, for 
having been convicted of making use of a parchment on which 
were found written in English the Lord's Prayer, the apostle's 
creed, and the ten commandments. Moreover, everybody in 
England recollected that, one hundred and forty years before, 
the pious Wyckliffe, for having attempted the same task of trans- 
lating the Bible into English for the English, had been constantly 
persecuted ; that the House of Lords, and the Convocation of the 
Clergy in St Paul's, London, had strictly prohibited the use of 
that book ; and such was the horror they had of a Bible in the 

1 Our readers should follow Tyndal's career as exhibited in the admirable work 
of Merle d'Aubigne', 1854. [The fullest account of Tyndal's life and biblical 
labours is contained in Mr Anderson's Annals of the English Bible; 2 vols. 8vo. 
London, 1847. A second edition condensed in 1 vol., 1861. — Tk.] 



THE SCEIPTTKES EESTOEED AT THE EEFOEMATIOX. 587 

vulgar tongue, that they not only burnt it when they discovered it, 
but burnt also, with the Bible hanging from their neck, the men 
who had read it ; and better to express in what abhorrence this 
work was held, they had ordained, forty-four years after his death, 
that the corpse even of WycklirTe should not have a secure grave 
on the soil of England, — that his bones, disinterred, should be 
burnt, and their ashes thrown into the river Swift. 1 The venerable 
Lady Jane Boughton, eighty years old, was burnt for reading the 
Scriptures ; her daughter, Lady Young, had to undergo the same 
punishment. John Bradley, shut up in a chest, was burnt alive 
in Smithfield before the valiant Henry, then Prince of Wales ; and 
the noble Lord Cobham was burnt on a slow fire in St Giles's. 

Tyndal having quitted his protectors, betook himself to London, 
to seek there, in a more secret retreat, the means of pursuing his 
sacred work, but soon had reason to fear that punishment would 
interrupt his task. " Alas ! I see it !" he exclaimed, " all England is 
closed against me I" And as there was then in the Thames a vessel 
about to sail for Hamburgh, he got on board, having only his New 
Testament, and for the means of living only £10 sterling. He 
quitted his native country, and was never to see it again. Never- 
theless he left it with a holy confidence. :c Our priests," he said, 
" have buried God's Testament, and all their study is to prevent 
its being raised from the tomb ; but God's hour is come, and 
nothing henceforward shall prevent His written Word, as in former 
times nothing could prevent His incarnate Word, from bursting the 
bonds of the sepulchre, and rising from among the dead." 2 Tyn- 
dal augured rightly ; but it was the work of God alone. 

We must follow this martyr of the Scriptures in his agitated 
and suffering life, pursued from city to city ; first of all to Ham- 
burgh in 1523, where he had to endure every species of privation, 
poverty, debt, cold, and hunger, with his young and learned friend 
John Frith, his son in the faith, who had accompanied him to 
labour in the same work. Yet he had already the satisfaction of 
sending secretly to his friends in England the Gospels of Matthew 
and Mark ; but he was soon obliged to flee to Cologne to con- 
ceal himself again. We must follow him there, especially in 
his new troubles, where a priest, who had pursued his track, 

1 The Book and its Story, pp. 128-131. 2 Ibid., p. 152. 



588 



THE GEEAT MANIFESTATIONS OF PROVIDENCE. 



unexpectedly discovered at a printer's the first eighty pages of his 
book, and hastened to give information of it, both to the senate of 
Cologne and the King of England. " Two Englishmen who are 
concealed here, sire," he wrote, "wish, contrary to the peace of 
your kingdom, to send the New Testament in English to your 
people. Give orders, sire, in all your ports, to prevent the arrival 
of this most pernicious kind of merchandise." 1 With admirable 
promptitude, Tyndal, forewarned, anticipates the prosecution of the 
council of Cologne, runs to his printer, and throws himself, with 
the first ten sheets already printed, into a vessel that was going up 
the Ehine, and takes refuge in Worms ! To disconcert the pro- 
ceedings of his enemies, he changes the form and size of his book 
from a quarto to an octavo. In vain the Bishop of London had 
already assailed this work, which was so odious in his eyes, and 
denounced it in England. Tyndal, after so many exertions and 
prayers, had the happiness to finish the whole about the end of 1525, 
and intrusted its conveyance to England to some pious Hanseatic 
merchants, who could not bring it to London but at the peril of their 
lives. Let us listen to the man of God thus expressing his pious 
joy : " Now, my God," he exclaims, " take from its scabbard, in 
which men have kept it so long unused, the sharp-edged sword of 
Thy Word ; draw forth this powerful weapon, strike, wound, 
divide soul and spirit, so that the divided man shall be at war with 
himself, but at peace with Thee." And we may see the same 
bishop secretly commissioning a merchant to purchase the whole 
edition, in order to give it to the flames, and Tyndal at a distance 
receiving the money, which will enable him to pay his debts, and 
prepare immediately another edition better printed and more 
correct. Lastly, we have to see this faithful man settled at Ant- 
werp, always in danger, always concealed, always suffering in- 
numerable privations, but already at work, commencing his trans- 
lation of the Old Testament, with his pious friend, John Frith. 
Nevertheless, for each of them, their labours were soon to end, 
and their rest in God was to begin. The king of England sent 
secret emissaries to discover Tyndal's retreat, and to secure his 
person. These persons, it is said, were not able to see him close 
at hand without being almost gained over to his sentiments. At 

1 Merle d'Aubigne, History of the Reformation, v., 308, 309. 



THE SCEIPTUEES EESTOEED AT THE REFORMATION. 589 

last he was surprised and betrayed, and the officers at Brussels 
were prevailed upon to seize him and throw him into prison. 
There he remained two years, during which time he wrote those 
admirable letters which we still possess, addressed to his young 
fellow-labourer, Frith, who havino- returned to England, was des- 
tined very soon to be a martyr before him. On the sixth of 
October 1 536, fastened to a stake in the public square of Augs- 
burg, Tyndal gave up his life for the Holy Word. In his last 
moments, he was heard to raise his voice, and exclaim aloud, 
" Lord ! open the King of England's eyes !" It was on the applica- 
tion of Henry VIII., and by order of Charles V., that he was taken 
from Brussels to Augsburg, to undergo the punishment of death. 
He was strangled, and his body committed to the flames. His 
son in the faith, and fellow-labourer, the amiable Frith, had been 
burnt alive at Smithfield, in 1533, for havino- been engaged in the 
same work, as also had been, in 1528, the affectionate Thomas 
Bilney, the friend of his youth, with whom he had so devoutly 
commenced his labours. 

643. In this manner the Holy Scriptures were brought back to 
England in 1525. They returned moistened with the blood of 
their translators and martyrs, at the same time when other faith- 
ful men of God, exposed to similar conflicts, and braving similar 
dangers, translated them into the language of their respective 
countries, and restored them equally to the Church of God. 

Other affecting recitals of the same kind might be given, relat- 
ing to those struggles out of which the Scriptures made their 
way as from the tomb, to render the first calls of the Reformation 
audible to God's chosen ones. For, independently of the transla- 
tions which were then made of the New Testament, the whole 
Bible was translated into Flemish in 1526, 1 into German, by 
Luther, in 1530; into French, by Olivetan, in 1535 ; 2 into Eng- 
lish, by Tyndal and Coverdale, in 1 535 ; into Bohemian, by the 

1 Reuss, Geschichte der Schriften N. T., §§ 470-477. Le Fevre Lad finished 
his translation of the New Testament in 1523. 

2 The College of La Tour in the Valleys possesses a copy of it. At the end 
of the volume the acrostic verses indicate to w hom the edition was owing. Join- 
ing the initial letters we shall read — 

" Le3 Vaudois, peuple Cvangdlique, 
Ont mis ce tresor en publique." 



590 THE GEEAT MANIFESTATIONS OF PEOVIDENCE. 

United Brethren, ever since 1488 ; into Swedish, by Laurentius ; 
into Danish, in 1550 ; into Polish, in 1551 ; into Italian, by 
Bruccioli, in 1532, and by Teofilo in 1550 ; into Spanish, by de 
Eeyna, in 1569 ; into French-Basque, by order of the Queen of 
Navarre, in 1571 ; into Sclavonian, in 1581 ; into the language of 
Carniola, in 1581 ; into Icelandic, in 1584 ; into Welsh, by 
Morgan, in 1588 ; into Hungarian, by Caroli, in 1589 ; into 
Esthonian, by Fischer, in 1589. Thirty versions may be counted, 
it is said, for Europe alone. 

This universal resurrection of the holy book, and of its sacred 
canon, in the face of such obstacles, presents us no doubt with an 
impressive proof of the protection which guards it from age to age ; 
but we shall recocognise this protection far better, if we come to 
consider the prodigious effects of this book, whence once laid open 
to the sight of the nations. 

Those effects were immediate ; they were holy ; they were 
everywhere the same ; they were similar to those witnessed in the 
most glorious days of the Church ; they were of a power evidently 
Divine, by their moral grandeur in the spiritual world, and by 
their external grandeur in the political world, or on the general 
destinies of humanity. 

644. Those effects were immediate. Scarcely had the Flemish 
Bible, Luther's Bible, Tyndal's Bible, Olivetan's Bible, issued from 
the tomb, but directly the angel of the Eeformation made his 
powerful voice from God heard through all Europe. It came from 
heaven sudden, unexpected, by the most humble instruments, and 
at once the astonished world felt itself shaken to the foundations. 
Everything indicated an agency from on high. At the end of 
a few months, in Germany, in Switzerland, in France, in Flanders, 
in England, in Scotland, and soon afterwards in Italy, and even in 
Spain, the sheep of Jesus had heard His voice and followed Him. 
Great emotions had agitated them. Consciences were awakened 
by the Holy Word. A deep and powerful work had been effected 
in men's souls ; and very soon their idols were overthrown, and 
their traditions were cast away. They turned to the living and 
true God, and, like the Thessalonians, " received the Word in the 
midst of great tribulation, with joy of the Holy Ghost/' Their 
hearts were softened ; righteousness, peace, and joy, had descended 



THE SCULPTURES RESTORED AT THE REFORMATION. 



591 



into them. The face of the world was changed, and, after 900 
years of slavery, half of Europe appeared already delivered from 
Eome. Would it then be too daring, in describing this vast move- 
ment, so visibly originating from above, to speak of it as the 
excellent and learned Mr Elliot 1 has done in his exposition of the 
Prophet of Patmos, and to say with him, that this was the " mighty 
angel" that John saw "come down from heaven clothed in a 
cloud." " A rainbow was upon his head," a symbol of the peace of 
God, " and his face was as it were the sun/' for he brought to the 
world the sublime illuminations of faith. His progress was 
irresistible, " his feet were as pillars of fire." But whence came the 
power of his progress, its promptitude, its unity, its Divine security ? 
Hearken ! He had in his hand a book, a little book, (/3i/3\iapL8iov,) 
but an open book, open and not closed, open to all nations, — the 
everlasting gospel. Very soon he " placed his right foot on the sea, 
and his left foot on the earth/'' for he had to carry beyond the 
ocean the good news of grace, to lead nations in both hemispheres 
to the most glorious destinies, and to make known God's salvation 
to the utmost ends of the earth, — his action was powerful, and " he 
cried with a loud voice." 

We said that this great movement which restored the gospel to 
the earth came evidently from heaven ; and we said that it could 
be judged at once by its effects, for they were immediate, rapid, 
holy, everywhere the same, and from a power evidently Divine. 

645. They were immediate. Scarcely had the Word of the 
kingdom been restored to light, and the great " sower had gone 
forth to sow " 2 in the field of this world, when this seed of God 
was seen to reproduce its fruits of past times. It happened 
to this Word, after 900 years of sepulture, what we have seen 
happen in our day to those peas of ancient Egypt which Sir 
Gardiner Wilkinson,^ while examining the mummy-pits of the 

1 In his Horae Apocalypticae, voL i., p. 39. London, 1851. 

2 Matt. xiii. 4, 19. 

3 The celebrated traveller. See the CJtristian Times, April 6, 1849, p. 574. 
he peas were shrivelled and as hard as a rock. Mr Grirnstone sowed them 

very carefully on June 4, 1844, and at the end of the 30th he had the pleasure of 
seeing the pea spring up, which has from that time been named the mummy pea, 
not less prolific than the famous wheat of Egypt so admired by the ancients. Dr 
Plate has given lectures to the Syro-Egyptian Society on the mummy pea. 



592 THE GREAT MANIFESTATIONS OF PROVIDENCE. 



Pharaohs, found hermetically closed in a vase 3 and deposited in the 
British Museum ; or like those grains in the Celtic tombs of 
Bergerac, enclosed 2000 years ago by the superstition of the 
Druidical priests under the heads of the dead, and both of which, 
very carefully sown, have reproduced, under the rays of our spring, 
in all their primitive freshness, the pea from a hundred pods of the 
ancient Egyptians, with its white blossoms streaked with green, and 
the heliotrope, the trefoil, and the centaury of the ancient Gauls 
from the days of Julius Caesar. 

In a very few years, the work shewed its power by its extent, 
its organisation, and its energy. Thousands and thousands of 
souls had hastened to the Divine Word ; cities, republics, king- 
doms, and whole countries had been won over to the Gospel ; 
some in great numbers by the direct power of the Holy Spirit ; 
others, perhaps, in still larger numbers, by a conviction of the errors 
of Popery, and by the impulse of a universal movement. Alto- 
gether, it was a number that no man could number. The world, 
and Christians themselves, were astonished at it. " Who are these/' 
they said, " that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows V 
Isa. lx. 8. 

Scarcely had the Bible reappeared, when numerous Christian 
societies were formed and constituted in the midst of persecutions 
and exposure to death ; and the most admirable martyrs sealed 
their testimony to the gospel with the blood of the saints. 

And if we wish, from a different point of view, to make the 
idea more impressive of that powerful and marvellous rapidity 
with which the light of the Scriptures was propagated, and souls 
were released from traditions and priests to give themselves to 
the living and true God, let us rapidly recall some dates of this 
astonishing revolution. 

646. In Switzerland, where the German was spoken, for ex- 
ample, the Beformation commenced at the same time as in Saxony. 
Zwinglius arrived at Zurich in 1518. We find churches 
established and constituted there as early as 1522 ;l then, four 

1 See Corpus et Syntagma Confessionum Fidei, (Genevi, 1654.) Sumptibus Petri 
Chouet, (Preface, 9999, iii.) — " Quampridem enim in Helvetia, per prsedicationem 
evangelii, Ecclesiae fuerent instauratae et constitutae, praeter alia multa, de- 
monstrant Constantiensis Episcopi ad Tigurinos literae et Tigurinorum ad eundem 
responsiones, jam anno 1522 typis evulgatse." 



THE PEOGEESS OF THE REFORMATION. 



593 



years later, the republic, by a decree of its senate, abolished first 
of all the worship of images, and in the following year, 1527, the 
mass with all its accompaniments. 

Haller preached the gospel at Berne in 1521 ; and in 1527 the 
general edict in favour of the Eeformation was passed in that 
warlike republic, through the medium of all its municipalities. 

In Switzerland, where the French language was spoken, Farel, 
returning from the valleys of Piedmont, appeared for the first time 
at Geneva in 1532, and began to preach the gospel in that city. 
Froment arrived there a few days after, and delivered his first 
public discourse in the open air in the Place du Molard, which at 
that time bordered the lake, on New- Year's Day 1533. Farel, in 
the middle of the same year, printed, at Neufchatel, his first 
liturgy of the newly-formed churches, and returned to Geneva 
to preach for the first time in the convent of Eive, in 1 534? ; and, 
in August of the following year, 1535, the senate of the republic 
abolished the mass. 

This was a reformation ; it was soon to become a transformation. 
The following year, 1536, was marked by the arrival of Calvin, 
who was for twenty-nine years the most brilliant light of the 
churches that used the French lanouacre. 

© o 

In Germany, Martin Luther, in 1520, burnt the bull of Leo X. 
and the Decretals in the public square at Wittemberg; four months 
after, in 1521, he made his appearance at the diet of Worms, 
before the emperor and all the princes of Germany ; the same 
year, 1521, he began his translation of the New Testament, in the 
Castle of Wartburg, where the Elector had concealed him to save 
his life ; he finished it on the third of March 1522 ; printed it in 
September 1522, and the whole Bible in 1530. The Augustin 
monks of Wittemberg had suppressed the low masses, and began 
to administer the cup to the laity, from 1522. By that time the 
free cities of Germany were converted; Frankfort-on-the-Maine one 
of the first. Bucer was converted in 1521, and very shortly after 
Strasburg with him ; the kingdoms of Sweden and Denmark in 
1523; Prussia, under Albert of Brandenburg, in 1525. In the 
same year, 1525, John, the new Elector of Saxony, successor of his 
brother, Frederick the Wise, placed himself in the gap for the 
Eeformation, and declared himself without reserve in favour of 

2 P 



594 THE GEE AT MANIFESTATIONS OF PEOVIDENCE. 



Luther. Borne, says Mr Morrison, felt struck in her vitals." 1 
The noble and pious Hamilton, a young man of royal blood, on 
returning from his travels, preached the gospel in Scotland in 
1528; and this man of charity and prayer, at the early age of 
twenty-four, underwent in the following year a cruel but blessed 
martyrdom. 

In 1529, the diet of Spire passed a decree against the Luthe- 
rans, as they were called ; and then the Elector of Brandenburg, 
and many princes of the empire who followed him, had the courage 
to protest, and to form immediately, for their common defence, 
the treaty of Smalcald. 

The Brethren of Bohemia, and the Vaudois refugees in Hungary, 
had excited an increasing thirst for the milk of the Word ; and 
the Scriptures made so rapid a progress in Transylvania, that 
before 1530 a very large number of churches were reckoned in 
that distant country which had completely separated from Rome. 
The Bohemians, having united with the Swiss in their declaration 
of faith, published their Confession in 1533. 

Lastly, in the same year, 1533, the Parliament of England passed 
a resolution which withdrew that powerful kingdom from allegiance 
to the Pope. 

Many princes of the Germanic Confederation followed, as we have 
mentioned, the noble example of the Elector. The six princes of 
the empire who signed that celebrated Peotestation were — the 
Elector of Saxony, the Marquis of Brandenburg, Ernest and 
Francis, Dukes of Luneburg, the Landgrave of Hesse, and the 
Prince of Anhalt. The deputies of fourteen free cities of the 
empire had the glory of joining in this evangelical demonstra- 
tion ; and henceforward those princes and cities were the first to 
be distinguished, in the face of all Europe, by the noble name of 
Peotestants. 

"We cannot study these proceedings," Mr Morrison remarks, 
"without admiring their sublime character. It was the triumph 
of conscience over all worldly interests ; it was an illustrious ex- 
ample of the courage with which the power of the Most High 
invests His people when, with an honest and good heart, they 

1 History of the Reformation; translated by Burnier, p. 144. Paris, 1844. 



THE PE0GEES3 OF THE REFORMATION. 



595 



resolve to sacrifice everything in order to oppose that which is 
opposed to Him." 

Such, then, in the work of the Reformation, was the rapid and 
irresistible progress which that Holy Word made in the world ; 
and this is one of the marks which demonstrate, with the greatest 
evidence, that the cause was God's, and that the Lord operated 
then with His witnesses as in the days of the apostles, 1 " bearing 
testimony to the word of His grace by the signs which accom- 
panied it." A single generation had been sufficient. The Bible, 
restored to the earth, had spread its beams like the rising sun ; 
everywhere pious souls rejoiced in its light ; and this light had 
not only rendered visible to all eyes the evils of the Church of 
Borne in their most hideous depths, and forced all men to acknow- 
ledge that this Church was corrupted in its head as well as in its 
members, but it had awakened their consciences, and powerfully 
moved their hearts, by revealing the free gifts of God. From that 
time, the truths of Christ and His Divine promises, being rendered 
evident as the light of day, responded to all the aspirations of the 
souls that thirsted after righteousness, that were the most sanctified 
and the most loving. 

If the effects of the Holy Word at the Reformation were divinely 
rapid, they were also divinely holy ; and this second feature attests 
more than all the rest the heavenly origin of that vast movement* 

647. The men whom Divine grace had put at the head of this 
return to the sacred canon of the Scriptures were, in every country 
Christians of deep piety, of exemplary life, and of apostolic zeal ; 
while, as to the great multitude that followed them out of all the 
nations of Europe, they were in general people whose sincerity > 
elevated views, and living faith were unquestionable ; for it was in 
the path of self-denial, of suffering, and of humility, that they 
followed Jesus Christ. They thirsted after the Divine Word, and 
were ready to make every sacrifice for it. They had washed their 
robes in the blood of redemption. The objects they sought for, at 
any cost, were His truth, His peace, His life in their souls. They 
were not concerned merely to escape from the yoke of Rome, nor 
to protest against the errors of the priests ; they thought not of 



1 Acts xiv. 3, 1 7. 



596 



THE GREAT MANIFESTATIONS OF PROVIDENCE. 



their rights, but of their duties. They resolved to obey and to 
follow Jesus, carrying their cross — acknowledging no other medi- 
ator but Him, no other guide, no other righteousness, no other 
name whereby they could be saved ! 

Like Abraham, they quitted their country and their kindred, 
their houses, their honours, and their goods, going forth to seek in 
a foreign land a country possessed of the gospel, preferring the 
hardships of exile and poverty, prison, reproach, and often death, 
to all the comforts of their former condition. How often they 
might be seen arriving at the cities of refuge God had opened for 
them, despoiled of everything, harassed, but yet happy in having 
quitted all for Jesus Christ ; and esteeming this wandering life, 
with all its uncertainties, its humiliating circumstances, and its 
painful toils, as far happier and more valuable than all the trea- 
sures of earth, because " they had respect to the recompence of 
reward," (Heb. xi. 26.) Like the Hebrews to whom St Paul wrote, 
"they took joyfully the spoiling of their goods, knowing that they 
had in heaven a better and more enduring substance," (Heb. x. 34.) 
They might be seen in the different countries of the Eeformation 
passing through the trial of mockeries, of scourging, of bonds and 
imprisonment, "wandering about, destitute of all things, afflicted, 
tormented : (of whom the world was not worthy :) they wandered 
in deserts and in mountains, and concealed themselves in dens and 
caves of the earth/'' (Heb. xi. 37, 38 ;) dying by the sword, by the 
fire, or by strangulation, but dying with psalms, and hymns, and 
prayers for their persecutors. 

648. And let it be borne in mind that, in using this language, I 
mean to speak only of the first generation which heard the great 
voice of the Eeformation, — that generation which was first aroused 
by the brightness of the Holy Word, and which, having consented 
to suffer for this recovered and proclaimed truth, constituted the 
first churches. I do not speak of the generations that followed, 
and which afterwards formed in different countries of Europe, 
under very different influences, our Protestant populations. 

A revival coming from God lasts only for one generation of men 
— that is to say, for thirty or forty years, according to what has 
been said by the illustrious Jonathan Edwards, the greatest theo- 
logian, probably, of modern times, who had such abundant means 



CRESPINS HIST OK Y OF THE MARTYRS. 



597 



of studying the subject. The divine phenomenon can be repro- 
duced, no doubt, by fresh effusions of the Spirit ; but then it is a 
new work. In proportion as the generation which has experienced 
it disappears by death, the phenomenon also disappears, and the 
generations that come after will gather only its indirect fruits by 
the natural influences of education and example. God can bless 
individually these means of grace to the children, but their effects 
will not have the same extent nor the same intensity as the revival 
itself; for the new birth "is not of blood, nor of the will of the 
flesh, nor of the will of man ;" it is of God, whose Spirit " bloweth 
where it listeth." 

We must not, then, judge of what has been a religious revival 
by what the generations are that succeed it. 

And it is not an exception to this rule that we have seen, in the 
religious history of Geneva, the remarkable and vital piety of 
that city perpetuated after the Reformation for 150 years. This 
singular fact is accounted for by the continual influx of refugees 
and martyrs, which year after year, for more than a century and 
a half, never ceased to flow thither. 

G49. Now if — to demonstrate the intervention of God in that 
Reformation which restored to the world the canon of Scripture — ■ 
we give as an additional proof the eminent holiness which marked 
its effects throughout, in doing this we do not arbitrarily indulge 
our personal predilections. Very possibly they might be disputed, 
and we might be thought prejudiced. But we shall appeal to the 
most incontestible, the must exact, and the most authentic testi- 
mony. These men of the Reformation, " though dead, yet speak," 
(Heb. xi. 4 ;) we can follow them ; we can listen to them in their 
life and in their last conflict ; they still speak by their faith, their 
hope, and their love. I refer here to the History of the Martyrs, 
by Crespin, an inestimable book, and now very scarce ; the most 
interesting monument which has been left us of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, the most noble of that incomparable epoch, and, I venture 
to say (having studied it attentively, and found it always tend to 
the edification of my soul and the confirmation of my faith) that, 
taken as a whole, it is the noblest monument of Christianity since 
the days of the apostles. It narrates, for sixty-nine years, the 
life, the doctrine, the heart and mind of the martyrs of the Refor- 



598 



THE GEEAT MANIFESTATIONS OF PEOVIDENCE. 



mation, and you behold them in their sufferings and last hours. 
Ear more familiar, more authentic, and more instructive than what 
has been left us as memorials of the first ages, or the narratives of 
Eusebius respecting the martyrs of his times, or the affecting 
accounts of the death of St Ignatius, written by eye-witnesses, or 
the beautiful letter from the church at Smyrna on the death of 
Polycarp, — is this folio of more than 3000 pages. And you find 
in it not only, as in the ancient writings I have just named, an 
account of the heroic death of martyrs, but their examinations, 
their answers at length, their confessions on all the points of faith, 
their trials of various kinds, their familiar letters to the friends 
who prayed for them, and sometimes the letters addressed to them 
in their confinement by Christians, such as Calvin, Viret, Farel, 
and Beza, who held, at Geneva, or elsewhere, social meetings on 
their behalf. You read in this volume their consolations, their 
trials, their devotions. Nothing could better exemplify the piety 
of an epoch than such a volume as this ; for you see the martyrs 
in their doctrine, in their worship, in their habits of prayer, in 
their brotherly union, and in their last conflict. It is a most 
living picture of contemporary Christianity ; it is the most in- 
genuous expression of their heroism and their sanctity. We 
follow them day by day, we appear with them before their judges, 
we associate ourselves with their testimony, we suffer with them, 
we weep with them, we join our voices with their hymns, we tri- 
umph with them. In a word, it is the realisation of the Christian 
life of those times in the most energetic and devoted members of 
the Church ; and it is impossible not to recognise in such Christian 
heroism the transcendent agency of the Holy Spirit. We cannot 
recommend too highly this rare work to every believer, assuring 
him that he will find there a continual and impressive lesson of 
what it is to live in Jesus Christ. 

650. The learned and pious Crespin, a friend of Calvin, but 
younger, was, like him, a refugee from Erance to Geneva, and he 
had already rendered himself useful to the churches by his nume- 
rous writings, when all the Christians of reformed Switzerland 
were roused on the subject of the martyrdom of five young 
Frenchmen, students of theology, who had come to the academy 
of Lausanne to prepare, under Theodore Beza, for the preaching 



ceespin's histoey of the maetyes. 



599 



of the gospel. On returning to Lyons, they were seized, thrown 
into dungeons, subjected to the rudest tests, and at last con- 
demned to be burnt to death. Their examinations, their noble 
confessions, their affecting letters sent daily to Geneva, suggested 
to Crespin the first thought of applying himself to that great 
work to which he consecrated the rest of his life. " My whole 
aim," he says in his preface, " has been to write the life, the doc- 
trine, and the happy end of those who have furnished testimony 
of having sealed by their death the truth of the gospel." 

The book reaches from the reign of Nero to the death of 
Henry III. of Valois in 1589. "And that no one may doubt,'' 
Crespin says in his preface, "of the fidelity which I have preserved 
in these collections, since God granted me the favour of sketching 
the first outlines, I have protested and still protest that I have 
endeavoured to write as succinctly and simply as possible what 
concerns the attacks made upon the churches. And as to writings 
and confessions, I have inserted nothing without the writen tes- 
timony of those who are dead, or without learning by word of 
mouth from those who have asked them, or without having ex- 
tracts from public records, or without having seen faithful wit- 
nesses, or writings so well authenticated that they could not be 
contradicted. I have sometimes found obscure passages, as if 
written in dark places of concealment, and often with their blood, 
which the poor martyrs were obliged to use for want of ink. As 
to their examinations and answers, which have been some times 
taken from records, everything is generally so confused, and set 
down as suited the taste of ignorant or malicious clerks, that it 
was necessary to give a summary extract, preserving the substance 
of the questions and answers." 

Crespin died full of days. Pious men sent to him at Geneva, 
from Belgium and Chanibery, Italy and Turin, and from all (he 
cities in France, everything they could discover relating to martyrs ; 
and he consecrated his long life to collecting reverentially all these 
precious remains. He himself did not leave this world till 1587, 
twenty-three years later than Calvin. Yet, after his decease, the 
number of the martyrs having much increased, a pious and 
able man added fresh books to his collection, and Eustace 
Vignon, his son-in-law, published at Geneva, in 1608, first a 



600 



THE GEEAT MANIFESTATIONS OF PEOVIDENCE. 



fourth edition, composed of ten books, and then a fifth, containing 
twelve. 1 

651. After having narrated in his first book the persecutions 
and martyrdoms of the fourteen first centuries, to the days of the 
great Wyckliffe, in 1371, in the second he narrates the sufferings 
of the witnesses of Jesus Christ who died for the truth in the 
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when the lamp of the gospel, as 
the author says, had passed from the English to the Bohemians, 
and John Huss and Jerome of Prague made a stand against the 
whole world at the great Council of Constance, then a great many 
martyrdoms in France, England, Holland, Germany, amongst 
whom those of the first literary men of Meaux, who had en- 
lightened Erance — Jacques Pavannes, Louis de Berquin, Denis 
de Bieux, Castelain, Wolfgang, Schuch ; next, in Scotland, Patrick 
Hamilton, of royal blood ; next, J. de Castuce, burnt at Toulouse, 
Alexander Canus at Paris, and Jean Pointet at Savoy. " Then, as 
at this time/' said Crespin, "the light increased in brightness, 
believers multiplied by great numbers in different places." And 
thus he comes to his third book, which begins with the great 
persecution that occurred at Paris in 1534, on the subject of the 
placards. 

That furious storm, which caused such sufferings to numbers 
of believers in that city, was of advantage not only to other cities 
in Erance, but to foreign countries. " Geneva," he says, " derived 
advantage from the excellent persons whom God withdrew thither 
to open afterwards the great school for His people. That city," 
he says, "saw in the same year, 1535, by the martyrdom of Peter 
Goudet, burnt at a slow fire by the Peneysans, 2 what would have 
been done to the whole city if the adherents of its bishop had 
gained the upper hand." 

The Vauclois endured unspeakable sufferings. You see the rage 
of the Spanish inquisitors in the death of Boch of Brabant, and in 
the death of many martyrs burnt at Tournay. You see also the 

1 We might have cited in the same manner the interesting English martyrology 
of John Foxe in 1563. This writer died in London at the age of seventy. He 
had educated the Duke of Norfolk. His son, it is said, republished his admirable 
collection in 1634, in folio. 

2 The inhabitants of a fortified village which belonged to the bishop and his 
party. 



ceespin's histoky of the maetyes. 



601 



admirable fruits of the labours of Peter Brully, French pastor at 
Strasburg, when visiting the Low Countries. You have, again, the 
persecution of Metz, visited by Farel, as well as the afflictions of 
Flanders and Hainaut. 

The fourth book begins with the fourteen martyrs of Meaux. 
You see in England the fury of Henry VIII. falling on the noblest 
persons in his realm. In France, Dauphiny, Normandy, Burgundy, 
L' Auvergne, Limages, La Touraine, present, in turn, bloody witnesses 
of the grace which is in Jesus Christ, In the Low Countries there 
are also some eminent martyrs. In vain the parliaments of Dijon, 
Chambery, exert themselves to stifle the doctrine of the gospel. In 
vain Canino and Casanove are put to death in Italy ; the gospel 
will continue to spread more and more. Here again appear the 
five students of Lausanne burnt at Lyons ; their noble confession, 
their admirable martyrdom. 

The fifth book is devoted entirely to the horrible persecutions 
which followed in England the accession of Mary, who re-established 
throughout her kingdom the service of the mass and image-worship. 
During the same period the fires of martyrdom were kept burning 
in all parts of France. 

The sixth book opens with a beautiful and affecting spectacle. 
Five respectable men setting out from Geneva to make use of the 
admirable gifts God had imparted to them are stopped on their 
road towards the valleys of Piedmont and taken to Chambery. 
There they sealed with their blood their doctrine, and the precious 
writings that were taken from their prison. 

" The diversity of nations and of minds/' Crespin remarks, " ex- 
cites our admiration of one effect of the Divine agency — namely, 
the holy harmony of doctrine which was everywhere seen to be 
gloriously maintained among the Lord's witnesses of every country 
and of every rank." Besides the English, who appear here in great 
numbers, you see learned men of Italy ; brethren of the Low 
Countries executed at Malines ; some English bishops, true bishops, 
such as Glover, Ridley, Latimer, Philpot, Cranmer the primate of 
England, and other personages equally attached to the glory of the 
Son of God, and all rendering the same testimony even unto death. 

The seventh book is full of a variety which renders the work of 
God in reference to His people more striking. A great number of 



602 THE GREAT MANIFESTATIONS OF PROVIDENCE. 



believers of every rank in France and in England are seen shedding 
their blood under the most cruel punishments, and nobly sealing 
the doctrine of salvation. The Low Countries, Champagne, Beam, 
Normandy, Touraine, Angouleme, Poitou, in like manner furnished 
heroic examples of believers in their respective provinces ; and " the 
light," Crespin here remarks, " spread so far by the preaching of the 
gospel that it reached as far as Brazil in America, a country lately 
discovered, which, as soon as the truth made itself heard there, was 
watered also by the blood of martyrs." 

Spain in its turn came to be winnowed by dreadful persecutions, 
and the tragical misdeeds of the Inquisition are here reported. 
This horrible institution was on the point of being introduced into 
France, and yet, in spite of the plots of their most malicious ad- 
versaries, the assemblies of believers in that country increased 
daily. It was then that, in spite of all obstacles, and in the midst 
of dreadful tempests, an invincible power, fortifying so goodly a 
number of martyrs, the truth advanced, and the pastors, the 
faithful deputies of the churches, met in 1559 in Paris itself, as if 
by the light of funeral piles, to publish their confession of faith, 
and the articles of their ecclesiastical discipline. The tragical 
death of King Henry II. suddenly dispersed the schemes of a 
cons|)iracy by which it was proposed to exterminate all the re- 
formed. The parliaments, astonished at the multitude of believers, 
seemed to moderate their fury, but very soon Anne du Bourg, a 
member of the parliament, had to shew by his courage and death 
the holiness of the cause he had so nobly defended. 

Then the eighth book, the last that Crespin wrote himself, and 
which ends in 1562, two years before Calvin's death, describes the 
dreadful sufferings of the faithful in the different provinces of 
France. The miserable state of Poland, Belgium, and Spain, is 
also briefly exhibited. 

652. We must follow during the long years which the Eeforma- 
tion includes in Crespin's narrative, this multitude of every country, 
persecuted, thrown into prisons, condemned to the flames, and dying 
for Jesus Christ, if we wish to form a just idea of the holiness which 
for such a length of time characterised this vast movement. What 
patience ! what charity ! what heroic gentleness ! what glorious 
faith ! Above all, we must see this powerful people of the French 



crespin's history of the martyrs. 



603 



Keforroed Church, persecuted, deprived of their property, deceived, 
betrayed, tracked, slain in the very act of worship, like sheep led 
to the slaughter ; or obliged to leave the kingdom, thrown into 
prisons at the instance of the priests, given up to tribunals, loaded 
with insults, and burnt alive in public places, without their patience 
and gentleness being disturbed, and without their being reproached 
in any province, during forty years, with a single act of resistance 
or revolt. What power then restrained this great French people ? 
It was not the fear of man. In many places the Reformed were 
in the majority ; they were trained to arms ; they had in their 
ranks the better half of the nobility, the choicest part of the 
military, the most illustrious captains of the age. What restrained 
them for forty years was holiness ; it was the fear, not of man, 
but of God ; it was reverence for His written Word, which forbade 
Christians to rebel against " the powers that be," even those of a 
Nero. Let us not forget that thirty-five years passed from the 
cruel and affecting punishment of John le Clerc at Meaux in 
152-i to that of the noble counsellor Anne de Bourg, whom the 
king caused to be strangled and burnt for the sole fact of his 
having respectfully but nobly avowed before him that he was a 
partisan of the persecuted faith. I know not if in all history we 
can find a more singular and beautiful spectacle than these five- 
and -thirty years of Christian long-suffering and gentleness among 
a whole people. Certainly, for any one who knows this nation, 
such heroism, so long, so patient, and so humble, cannot be ex- 
plained but by the influence of the Holy Spirit and of the written 
Word upon the 2150 churches of which that great people of the 
French Reformed then consisted. 1 

653. But in the effects of the Reformation, which the sacred 
canon of the Scriptures gave to the world, what above all shews 
the Divine agency, is not only their extent, nor the rapidity of 
their progress, nor their admirable holiness ; it is rather, as we 
have said, their marvellous unity. 

Everywhere you sec these new men come forth from the same 

1 According to an official return, besides the churches planted, of which the 
number is unknown, the number of regularly constituted churches (igliaes drcssccs) 
in 1561 amounted to 2150. (See Lcittcroth, Reformation en France, Paris, 1850, 
p. 131.) 



604 



THE GEEAT MANIFESTATIONS OF PEOVIDENCE. 



school ; all have for their instructors only the written Word and 
the Holy Spirit ; all are of the same family, and children of the 
same Father ; they have the same elder Brother — He who in 
heaven "is not ashamed to call them brethren." In Transylvania, 
in Poland, in Sweden, in Denmark, in Germany, as in Scotland or in 
England, or in Holland or in France ; at Bale, at Berne, at Geneva, 
as in Spain or in Italy — everywhere, if you examine what the Holy 
Word, when brought again to light, produced in the souls of these 
martyrs, you will be struck with admiration ; for always, and in every 
quarter, you hear the same language. There is the same faith, the 
same sensibility, the same experiences, the same adoration. Every- 
where there is the same Saviour, saving sinners by the same free 
grace, without any other price than His blood, without any other 
merit than His merits, without any other hand for laying hold of 
this grace but the hand of faith, without any other condition but 
of receiving it without condition, with no other guide, no other 
mediator, no other priest than Jesus Christ received into the heart 
by the grace of the Holy Spirit. 

654. To establish this interesting fact, I would say, Read the 
conflict and the end of each of these thousand martyrs. But 
perhaps I shall make it more clear and impressive by appealing 
to another monument of the Reformation — one of the most admir- 
able, and most worthy of being studied. I refer to the harmonious 
collection of the " Thirteen great Confessions of Faith/' which the 
restoration of the Scriptures in Europe caused to be solemnly 
published in the most distant and different countries. There was 
not, first of all, any concert between one nation and another ; all 
were separately made, and under the most agitated state of things; 
yet you will be obliged to admire their holy agreement. Different 
collections of them have been published, better to shew their 
majestic unity ; but we prefer citing here one of the most ap- 
proved, published at Geneva in 1612, and entitled, "The Body of 
the Confessions of Faith," which, authentically drawn up in differ- 
ent kingdoms, nations, or republics of Europe, in the name of their 
churches, were at last presented in the most celebrated assemblies, 
and sanctioned by public authority. 1 

1 Sennebier, Hist. Litter, de Geneve, ii., 26 : — " Corpus et syntagnia Confessio- 
NUM Fidei quae in diversis regnis et nationibus. Ecclesiarum nomine, fuerunt 



THE THIRTEEN GEEAT CONFESSIONS OF FAITH. G05 

"We have here, then, not the writing of a particular author, — it 
is the voice of the ^Reformation making itself solemnly heard by 
all nations, through the great bodies of the church which represent 
it. It is the Eeformed body asking audience of the whole world. 

You will be able, then, to see in detail, in the thirteen principal 
confessions, which are as follow, the admirable and powerful 
agreement of which we speak : — 

655. There is, first of all, the celebrated Helvetic Confession. 
A former Swiss Confession had already been made at Bale, in Ger- 
man, in 1532. (It was adopted later by the civic authorities of 
Mulhausem) But, in 1536, the so-called Helvetic Confession was 
made first of all at Bale, at the request of the senate of that 
republic, who had convoked the evangelical cities of Switzerland, 
for the object of agreeing with them in an exposition of their com- 
mon faith. The cities, therefore, sent to Bale their most respected 
magistrates, with Henry Bullinger, Oswald Myconius, and Simon 
Gryneus, doctors of Zurich and Bale, who had also taken care to 
send for Bucer and Capito from Strasburg, that they might concur 
in preparing the document, and thus better attest the holy agree- 
ment of the churches. 

Their work was approved in their respective States ; it even 
received the approbation of the theologians of Wittemberg, and 
that of Luther. 

But subsequently, this Confession, drawn up with greater ful- 
ness, was published in 1566, and received the successive adhesion 
of the churches of Zurich, Bienne, SchafThausen, St Gall, the 
Grisons, Mulhausen, Bienne, and Geneva ; and, later still, the 
public and official approbation of the churches of England, Scot- 
land, France, Belgium, Poland, Hungary, and a great number of 
the German churches. 

2. The Confession of the Churches of France, drawn up at Paris 
by a national synod, secretly assembled in the midst of the most 
terrible persecutions. Two years later, Theodore Beza, in the 
name of the churches of France, presented it solemnly to King 
Charles IX., in the conference of Poissy. Afterwards read at the 
national synod of Bochelle in 1571, three copies of it were care- 

authentice editac, in celeberrimis couvcutibu.s exhibitao, publicaque auctoritato 
comprobatae." 



606 THE GREAT MANIFESTATIONS OF PROVIDENCE. 

fully made on parchment, which received the signatures, with their 
own hand, of the Queen of Navarre, Henry of Navarre, her young- 
son, Henry of Conde, Louis of Nassau, Admiral Coligny, as well 
as all the pastors or elders deputed to the synod by all the churches 
of the provinces of France. 

One of the three copies was sent to Geneva, and is deposited in 
the archives of that city. 

3. The celebrated Confession of the Anglican Church, accepted 
by the synod of London in 1562. It was amended and printed in 
1571. 

4. The Confession of Scotland, framed in 1568, was subscribed 
in parliament by all the estates of the realm in 1580. 

5. The Belgian Confession, written the first time in French in 
the year 1561, to express the common faith of the churches in 
Flanders, Artois, and Hainaut, which were then suffering such 
cruel persecutions. It was confirmed in 1579 by a Belgian synod. 

6. The Polish Confession, presented and proclaimed by common 
consent in the synod of Zamosc, (in synodo Czengerina^) and 
printed at Debreczin in 1570. 

7. The Confession of the Four Imperial Cities, namely, Stras- 
burg, Constance, Memmingen, and Lindau, written in 1538, and 
presented to the Emperor Charles V. by the deputies of those four 
cities, at the same time that the Confession of Augsburg was pre- 
sented to him. 

8. The celebrated Confession of Augsburg in 1530, drawn up 
on the spot, Philip Melancthon the writer tells us, while the diet 
held its sittings in that city. It was presented to the emperor by 
some of the most illustrious princes of Germany. It was acknow- 
ledged afterwards, and presented afresh to the Emperor Ferdinand 
in 1558 and 1561. 

9. The Saxony Confession in 1551. 

10. The Wurtemberg Confession, presented to the Council of 
Trent in 1552 by the deputies of the Duke of Wurtemberg. 

11. The Confession of the Elector Palatine. 

12. The Confession of the Bohemian Church, and of the Vaudois 
refugees from Piedmont in a foreign land. This is one of the 
most ancient. Approved publicly by Luther and Melancthon in 
1532, and by the Academy of Wittemberg, it was at last adopted 



THE THIRTEEN GEE AT CONFESSIONS OF FAITH. 607 

by the free barons of the kingdom of Bohemia, and the rest of the 
nobility, and presented in 1535 to King Ferdinand. 

13. Lastly, The general Consensus passed in the assembly at 
Thorn, by the Polish churches of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, 
and of Great and Little Poland. 

656. Let it suffice us to have pointed out these thirteen con- 
fessions, and the remarkable books which, by bringing them 
together, only make us admire the unity that exists amidst the 
diversity. " It is a good thing," said Augustin, " to have many 
orthodox expositions of Holy Scripture, expressed in different 
terms, provided they agree in the same faith ; for this diversity 
serves for the better understanding of the truth, since it is not 
contrary to it/' 1 

Thus, while that admirable unity of the people of God in their 
faith is exhibited in so beautiful and affecting a manner, by the 
innumerable martyrs of the Eeformation, summoned apart before 
their judges and executioners, and yet all giving the same testi- 
mony either in the dungeon or on the scaffold ; it is also a beau- 
tiful spectacle to see it also proclaimed by the synods, and on the 
most solemn occasions by whole churches, and by their most emi- 
nent doctors. 

657. But we have said enough to shew the hand of God in that 
great dispensation which, after nine centuries of obscurity, restored 
to the world the sacred canon of the Scriptures. Everything, in 
fact, reveals that hand ; the inveterate greatness of the obstacles — 
the extreme feebleness of the means — the unparalleled nature of 
the effects — their suddenness, their rapid and powerful progress, 
their extent, their action on nations, and on consciences — their 
singular holiness, and their magnificent unity. 

It now only remains to speak of the last intervention of Provi- 
dence, and the splendid testimony it bears to the canon of the 
Scriptures. 

This is perhaps the most remarkable of the three dispensations, 
though it appeared at the dawn of the nineteenth century, without 
noise or previous expectation, — rising like another sun upon the 
world, to enlighten it with a new light, and, in a short time, to 

1 De Doctrina Christiana, lib. ii. " Ilia rtiversitas plus arijuvat, quam impedit 
intelligentiam, si modo logcntcs non sint negligcntes." 



COS THE GEEAT MANIFESTATIONS OF PEOVIDENCE. 

enrich the most distant nations with the beneficent fruits of its 
agency. 

Moreover, there is this great point of superiority in this dis- 
pensation to the preceding ones — that while they gave to the canon 
only a collective testimony, splendid and valuable, no doubt, yet 
indistinct, this of which we are about to speak refers distinctly, 
exclusively, and by name, to each of the twenty- seven books of the 
New Testament, as well as to each of the thirty-nine books that 
compose the Old Testament. All our readers will understand that 
we are here speaking of the great institution of the Bible Society, 
the wonder of this age — an institution without parallel for its 
magnitude — oecumenical and fraternal, generous and powerful — ■ 
carrying the everlasting gospel over the whole earth, accomplishing 
in silence such great things, while it quietly prepares, as we have 
said, for greater things. 

Section Third, 
the bible society. 

658. Fact the Fourteenth. — The Bible Society appeared on the 
earth when no one expected it, in order to begin an entirely new 
era of universal evangelisation. 

In rapidly reviewing its first operations, and comparing them 
with what God has caused it to become, we hope we shall make 
all our readers comprehend how much the hand of the Lord has 
been revealed in this wonderful creation ; so that every one may 
better estimate the full force and extent of the testimony which 
this institution bears among all nations, and in all the languages 
of mankind, to the sacred canon of the Scriptures. 

659. It would be interesting to recall the humble circumstances 
of its birth, when the first conception of a Bible Society entered the 
heart of Mr Charles, the minister of Bala, while that apostolic man 
was exercising his ministry among the poor inhabitants of Wales ; 
but these details are so well known in England, and especially by 
recent works on the subject, that we omit them in this trans- 
lation. 

660. On March 7, 1804, the very year when, in Trance, Napo- 
leon I. seized the imperial sceptre, and when in England all 



THE BEITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY. 



C09 



men seemed occupied only with his threatened invasion, and with 
victorious conflicts by land and sea, this important institution, 
destined to effect such great things in the kingdom of God, was 
constituted in London, unostentatiously, before an assembly of 
300 persons, mostly Dissenters. 1 

G61. The society thus formed seemed at first like an obscure 
and weakly infant, for nothing could be more unpretending than 
its birthplace and its first friends. But God, who intended to 
make it one of the most powerful instruments of His mercy for 
the whole earth, was pleased, as usual, to render His agency 
more manifest, by the very lowliness of its beginning. Whenever 
He prepares great things for His Church, He takes care to keep 
back at first the powerful and the influential of this world, that 
all the honour of what is done may redound to Himself alone. 
Moses was taken from the river in an ark of bulrushes, and when 
an angel came to announce to men a Deliverer as far superior to 
Moses as the Creator to the creature, " Behold ! " He said, " this 
shall be a sign unto you : you shall find the babe wrapped in 
swaddling clothes, lying in a manger/' (Luke ii. 12.) 

Around the cradle of the Bible Society were found at first 
none of the great ones of the earth, because God had in reserve 
for it the highest destinies. 

The same year in which Pope Pius VII. came to Paris to 
inaugurate the first Bonaparte with so much pomp in Notre Dame, 
a few private persons met at the London Tavern to inaugurate an 
association destined to produce to the very ends of the earth 
results a thousand times superior — I do not say only in duration, 
nor only in excellence, but in grandeur — to all the traces that 
extraordinary man was able to leave behind of his genius and his 
victories. 

On the 7th of March 1804, at the inauguration of the society, 
not a single influential person either in the State or the Church 
was present ; the only Episcopal minister who had condescended, 
though with reluctance, to attend, the Ptev. John Owen, tells us 
himself the astonishment and uneasiness he felt at first, when 
he found himself seated near three Quakers, so novel at that 

1 The Book and its Story, pp. 217-238. Owen's History of the First Ten 
Years of the Bible Society. 

2Q 



610 



THE GEEAT MANIFESTATIONS OP PROVIDENCE. 



time were such associations. But the excellent Owen could freely 
afford to make these confessions, after the zeal he had so long 
displayed in this holy cause, and the eminent services he had 
rendered it. 1 

662. Yet nothing can better shew the divine hand in this 
institution, as God made it, than to consider what men at first 
wished to make it. 

By a divine arrangement, this infant, so obscure and feeble on 
its first entrance into the world, but for which, without those who 
had the charge of it being aware, so grand a future was reserved 
by God — this infant received into its constitution an organism 
and laws of existence in pre-established harmony with its glorious 
destiny. This society, as men at first planned it, would have had 
neither the aim, nor the mode, nor the simplicity, nor the catho- 
licity, nor the grandeur which have characterised it; and when 
we consider the long-cherished prejudices of church and sect 
which had preceded its birth, we venture to say that no man 
would have been equal to conceiving a plan at once so simple and 
so magnificent. This great epoch, which we venture to call the 
biblical era in the history of the Church, really inaugurated a 
period altogether novel of fraternal breadth and true catholicity ; 
so that, in the unthought-of manner in which it was formed, it at 
once revealed to us that it was of God as its immense and con- 
tinual progress will very soon shew us. 

Let us now state its constitution ; let us also state its immense 
progress ; and we shall then be in a position to appreciate the 
value of the testimony it renders at the present day in all the 
languages of mankind to the sacred canon of the Scriptures. 

663. What is its constitution ? The British and Foreign Bible 
Society exists only to spread among all nations, and to the ends 
of the earth, one book, the written Word of God in the Old and 
New Testaments. 

It prints and circulates it without any note, explanation, or 
comment. 2 

It delivers it pure from all human alloy; it admits no apo- 
cryphal book ; and when it gives it to societies on the continent, 

1 The Book and its Story. London, 1854, p. 229, &c. 

2 Excepting the various readings of the text and of the translation. 



THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY. 



611 



it takes care not to deliver it into their hands till it is bound, 
that there may be no temptation anywhere to associate any other 
book with the oracles of God. 

It gives the written Word in all the languages of mankind, 
making use, as far as possible, of the most faithful and accredited 
versions. 

Where versions are wanting, it seeks to obtain them, and for 
this end contributes by donations, directly or indirectly. 

The Bible Society, as a society, belongs to no particular Church, 
to no section of the universal Church, to no party. 

From its birth, in order to maintain its catholicity, and to be 
of service to all men who search the Scriptures, it was placed 
under the direction of a large committee, composed of thirty-six 
laymen, taken from every denomination of Christians. Six of 
these members must be chosen from foreigners who reside in 
London or its neighbourhood, half of the remaining must belong 
to the Church of England, the other to Dissenting churches. This 
is still its constitution, and it is striking to see how, from that 
day, this creation of so novel a kind has inaugurated for our age, 
and for the majority of our existing churches, a new era of true 
catholicity, of fraternal association, and of evangelical alliance. 

It has been better than ever before understood that, beyond the 
distinctions, often too stringent, of our ecclesiastical denominations, 
there exists before God a holy and universal Church of all the 
true worshippers of Jesus Christ. 

The committee, which meets regularly on the first Monday in 
every month, is composed, we have said, of laymen ; but to com- 
plete the description of its government, we must add this clause, 
that every minister of whatever church, if he is a member of the 
society by his annual subscription, has a right to take a part every 
month in the deliberations of the committee, and even to give his 
vote. Moreover, the British and Foreign Bible Society accepts the 
co-operation of every other society, at home or abroad, which is 
disposed to pursue the same object under the same conditions. 

Its grants to societies on the European Continent have always 
been liberal. They were remarkably so during the first ten years 
of its existence narrated by Owen. For before the end of the 
terrible wars of England against Napoleon, forty-eight independent 



612 



THE GREAT MANIFESTATIONS OF PROVIDENCE. 



Bible societies in Germany, Hungary, Sweden, and Switzerland, 
in Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Courland, and Russia, had received 
from its generosity 99,000 Bibles and 127,000 New Testaments. 

And if the society, thus associated in all regions of the globe 
with so many thousand societies of the same kind, may be con- 
sidered as forming an imposing body of which it is the model and 
head, it has always been without domineering, or being respon- 
sible for their acts. It has never pretended to put itself at the 
head of this vast union ; it maintains with these ten thousand 
associations only the relations of holy co-operation and Christian 
brotherhood. 

Lastly, The society has never received and never sought the aid 
of any government. It has never conveyed its agents or its Bibles 
on board government vessels, — it has had no transactions with the 
great powers of this world, and never has had the thought of gain- 
ing by the sale of its books ; for the entire receipts it has obtained 
from that quarter has not amounted to one-half of its grants. 
And to carry on its liberal donations to so many other societies, it 
draws from the offerings of piety, of rich and poor, but chiefly 
from the latter. It has but one object, the extensive circulation of 
the Scriptures. This is all its gain. 

We see, then, what it is. Let me shew, in few words, what it 
has done, or rather what God has done by it, silently, for half a 
century. 

To give an idea of the progress of its work all over the earth, 
we shall attempt to shew the measure of it, by some facts and 
figures taken from its last report. 

664. During these fifty-six years of daily increasing labour, the 
British and Foreign Bible Society has caused the Scriptures to be 
printed and circulated in 188 versions. 

It has caused them to be translated, printed, and circulated in 
158 different languages or dialects spoken among men. 

Of these 158 different languages in which the Bible Society has 
caused the Scriptures to be translated, printed, bound, and cir- 
culated, for 109 it has charged itself directly with all the expense ; 
and for the 49 others, indirectly by donations and grants to other 
societies. For example, by supporting for a time missionaries 
who left provisionally to their colleagues their daily task of ordi- 



THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY. 



613 



nary ministration, to give themselves to the labour of a first trans- 
lation of the Scriptures among people who never before possessed 
them. 

Among these 158 languages in which the Bible Society has 
caused the oracles of God to be translated, printed, and circu- 
lated, 138 had never before been reduced to a written language. 

Thus, then, during this half century alone so many new tribes, 
almost unknown to geography, but now evangelised, see their 
happy children come from the missionary schools with the Holy 
Word in their hands ! They knew nothing of the wonders of 
reading, and of the printing press, — they had never seen books ; 
and usually, like the father of king Moshesh among the Bassutos, 
they would have said to the missionary who brought them, under 
the form of a sacred volume, the good news of the grace of God, 
c< No ; I can never believe that a black can be clever enough to 
make paper speak. A lie all this ! — a lie ! No one can make me 
believe that the word of man can become visible ! " l 

665. To give a single example of the labour which must be 
undergone on behalf of each of these 138 tribes, it is sufficient to 
call to mind what was done for their most ancient station, the 
interesting island of Tahiti. In 1796, eight years before the for- 
mation of the Bible Society, the first English missionaries on 
board the Buff landed on this island. After sixteen year's hard 
labour they had gained nothing ; and it was only in the twenty- 
fourth year that the first-fruits clearly shewed themselves. In 
1820, two Tahitan domestics, who had met to pray together, had 
succeeded in assembling round them, during the absence of the 
missionaries, a group of islanders desirous of seeking God, and 
longing after Him. " The spirit of grace and of supplication M at 
last descended on this people. Then the society hastened to 
supply these rising churches with three thousand copies of Luke's 
Gospel in Tahitan, and soon after with ten thousand copies of the 
other Gospels and the Book of Acts. Schools multiplied, and the 
people advanced in the knowledge of God, until at last, in 1830, 
the whole New Testament could be supplied to them ; and, in 
1838, the Old Testament was printed for them under the superin- 
tendence of the venerable missionary Notts, who had resided in 

1 Casalis, Bassutos, pp. 86, 88, 118. 



en 



THE GEE AT MANIFESTATIONS OF PROVIDENCE. 



these islands for forty years. These two books were so eagerly 
sought for by the natives that they paid two dollars for them, and 
in order to purchase them, engaged in distant fisheries. Thus, 
after forty-two years, the whole Bible was at last gained for this 
people. "It is delightful," the missionaries wrote in 1841, "to 
see their ardent thirst for the Holy Book. When they have 
obtained it, they leap for joy, they kiss it, and press it to their 
heart." Alas ! that this treasure should so soon become more 
precious to them than they ever imagined. 

It became, two years later, their consolation and their safeguard 
against the attacks of the Jesuits, and the long oppression of the 
French Protectorate. It was on the night of the 9th of September 
1843, that the Admiral Du Petit Thouars forced the unfortunate 
queen on board his vessel to sign the act of submission. But how 
wonderful it is that, in the seventeen years that followed, the pos- 
session of the Bible rendered this little people constantly firm in 
their faith, and inflexible against all that was done to frighten or 
to seduce them, since they had been separated from their English 
missionaries ! 1 

And what the society has effected in these islands, it has had to 
repeat among the 137 other tribes to whom it has carried the 
Scriptures. 

Thus, then, as of late it has often been remarked, we may say 
that, by the sole fact of these pious labours, the Bible Society, and 
the missionaries associated with it, have more enriched literature 
during the last fifty years, than all the voyagers, philosophers, and 
linguists have done since the beginning of the world, whether as 
to the acquisition of new languages, or to the intercourse of nations 
with one another. 

But it is our intention to exhibit its rapid and beneficent pro- 
gress from another point of view ; and for this purpose we must 
present other figures, which will enable us better to appreciate it, 
both as to the propagation of the knowledge of God, and to the 
testimony it has rendered all over the earth to the canon of the 
Scriptures. We take these details from its Fifty-sixth Annual 
Report, which reaches to March 31, 1860. 

666. During the year its receipts amounted to £1 64,136, 6s. 5d. ; 

1 The Book and its Story, pp. 408, 409. London, 1854. 



AUXILIARY BIBLE SOCIETIES. 



615 



in subscriptions, donations, and legacies, to £80,526, Is. 6d. ; in 
receipts for the sale of books, £81,493, 15s. lid. 

It has expended more than £179,000. It has distributed more 
than two million copies of the Scriptures. 1 

667. We may judge better of its most recent successes, and the 
increasing magnitude of its operations, if we say that this year its 
receipts have exceeded those of the preceding by more than 
£11,000 — its expenses by more than £25,000 ; if we say also that 
the society, which, in commencing its operations, found only fifty 
languages employed in versions of the Holy Scriptures, offers in 
the present day, as we have just said, 188 versions in 158 different 
languages ; if we say, again, that during the five first years of its 
existence its distribution of the Scriptures amounted in all to 
159,459 copies, while during the five last they have been fifty-one- 
times greater — that is to say, more exactly, 8,038,321 copies. 

And, lastly, if we add that it has distributed altogether since its 
foundation thirty-seven millions and a half copies of the Holy 
Scriptures, 2 and that it has expended during the same period 
nearly £5,000,000. 

668. But we may give in figures another most striking measure 
of its progress — namely, the number of auxiliary Bible societies 
which it has formed by its example, and its grants in every land 
where the Word of God is honoured. 

Among these thousands of associations there are some which, on 
account of their development and their labours, it will be necessary 
to mention apart. 

The object of all these is the same as its own ; but what distin- 
guishes the parent society is the splendour of its example, combined 
with the grandeur and generosity of its operations, for among all 
these thousands of societies we know not one which it has not 
richly assisted by its grants. 

Since March 7, 1804, it has associated to itself more than 
5000, without reckoning the 4200 auxiliary associntions of the 
United States, nor all those that were formed in Russia around 
the great Russian Society during the thirteen years of its ex- 
istence. 

The British and Foreign Bible Society counts, then, in Great 

1 Including the circulation in India. 2 Exactly 37,527,827. 



616 



THE GEEAT MANIFESTATIONS OF PEOVIDENCE. 



Britain 3672 auxiliaries ; in the Colonies, 877 ; and in the other 
British possessions, 453, — in all 5002. 

669. But there are many others which we will content ourselves 
with simply mentioning. 

The Hibernian and the Edinburgh Society ; the French Society, 
which, since its formation, has received from the British and 
Foreign Bible Society 4,000,603 copies; 1 and many others in 
Germany, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Hungary, Sweden, Wurt- 
emberg, and the Hanseatic towns. There is not one of the Pro- 
testant cantons of Switzerland which has not received very 
generous grants. Bale alone has received more than 442,365 
copies of the Scriptures. And there are two more societies 
which must be mentioned separately. 

670. The Bussian, which had its bright days that may yet return, 
began in Finland in 1812, and in the following year was fully consti- 
tuted at St Petersburg by an imperial ukase. It has translated the 
Scriptures into seventeen languages, in which they had never been 
known before. It has printed them in thirty different languages ; 
it has circulated them in forty-five. In 1806, among the Bussians 
there was not one man in a thousand who could read the Scrip- 
tures, and one must have travelled hundreds of versts to find a 
Bible ; whilst, on the seventh anniversary of the Russian Society, 
Prince Galitzin described the ardour with which, even as far as 
Siberia and the Caucasian regions, the friends of the Holy Word 
were employed in translating it into the different dialects of the 
country. 

But what an ukase of Alexander had authorised in 1813, an- 
other ukase of Nicholas abolished in 1826, and the society ceased 
to exist ! 

During its short and beneficent existence it had procured for 
Russia, in the Russian language, the New Testament, the Psalms, 
and the eight first books of the Old Testament. It had printed 
324,000 copies of them ; and, in the space of ten years, it had dis- 
tributed 800,000 volumes. 

671. The other Bible Society, which yields in importance only 
to the British and Foreign Bible Society, is that of the United 
States. 

1 Archives du Christianisme, du 30th Avril, 1860. 



THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY. 



617 



In 1854, at the jubilee of the British Society, its deputies 
declared that they counted 1400 auxiliary societies, and 2800 
branch associations. 

672. Neither the Church nor the world has ever seen any- 
thing comparable to the Bible Society for its universality and its 
grandeur. It is a majestic river, which has never ceased to in- 
crease, noiselessly, like the tides of the ocean, and which will 
increase until the times shall be accomplished, and " all the ends 
of the earth shall have seen the salvation of our God." If this 
giant is to-day, as we have said, fifty-one times greater than he 
was in 1809, five years after his birth, what will he not be in 
forty-four years, at the next jubilee ? And if, during this single 
half century, he has carried the Scriptures in 138 new languages 
among 138 new tribes of mankind, to how many other unknown 
nations will he have given them in fifty years more ? 

The pacific and powerful formation of this society is, then, an 
event of incomparable grandeur. It is the most important fact 
of the nineteenth century ; everything conspires to shew the hand 
of God in it ; everything tells us that He has prepared in this, 
His most powerful instrument for accomplishing the promised 
day, when " the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord 
as the waters cover the sea," (Is. xi. 9.) 

673. Are evangelical Christians, then, deceived, when they 
recognise in this great and beneficent institution the angel whom 
St John, during the visions of Patmos, beheld " flying in the 
midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach it unto 
them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, 
and tongue, and people?" "Fear God/' he said with a loud 
voice, " and give glory unto him, for the hour of his judgment is 
come," (Rev. xiv. 6-8.) 

But our main object in tracing the progress of this institution 
was to recognise in it another manifestation of God's watching over 
His written Word. We had therefore to shew that it came from on 
high, and with what constancy and with what fulness it bears the 
most splendid and absolute testimony to all the books of our 
canon. 

674. Truly we may say that here is the historical triumph of 
the canon. 



618 



THE GREAT MANIFESTATIONS OF PEOVIDENCE. 



We are asked what are the sacred books of the Old Testament, 
and what are the books that ought to be excluded. 

We are asked at the same time what are the inspired books of 
the New Testament. 

Behold, as if to answer in the name of the universal Church, 
this twofold question, there arises on earth at the beginning of 
the nineteenth century, a holy, gigantic, powerful association, 
such as the Church had never before seen, comprising, without 
distinction of sect, all classes of Christians who reverence the 
Scriptures, and proposing, for the only end of its existence, to 
circulate their true canon in all the languages of men to the very 
ends of the earth. 

Listen to it then, for it has every right to be heard. It labours 
for fifty years ; it has more than ten thousand societies like itself, 
which assist it in its work ; it has distributed in the two hemi- 
spheres more than fifty millions of the Sacred Volume in fifty- 
eight different languages of men, and it has girded up its loins 
not to cease its distributions of the canon till " all the kingdoms 
of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his 
Christ." 

Certainly it can be said of no other body than of this one, that 
it legitimately represents the Christian mind on this grand ques- 
tion. It is for all nations what the Amphictyonic Council was 
formerly among the Greeks, to whom the twelve Hellenic nations 
committed the charge of their temples. The Bible Society, the 
Amphictyonic Council of Christendom, appointed to guard the 
temple of the Scriptures, watches that nothing sacred shall be 
taken from it, and that nothing impure shall be admitted. Listen 
to it then. 

675. First of all, as to the Old Testament, what is its first 
testimony ? 

It sends over the whole earth the oracles of the Old Testament 
such as they have always been acknowledged by the Jews, and 
such as they were always received and cited by Jesus and His 
apostles. Here are the twenty-two books as the Jewish doctors 
and their historians, and the ancient fathers of the Church 
counted them, 1 — not one more — not one less, — and it sends them 

1 Propp. 59, 434. 



THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN BEBLE SOCIETY. 



619 



everywhere without any note, without any comment, without any 
Apocrypha, without any uninspired book. 

In the thirty-seven millions of the Sacred Volume which England 
has circulated, and in the thirteen millions and a half which our 
American brethren have distributed, no Apocrypha has been 
inserted. 

On the contrary, as the Amphictyonic Council of Christendom, 
and as appointed to guard the temple, they have cast out into the 
outer court these human books as unworthy of a place there, as 
Nehemiah cast out the "household stuff" of Tobiah, (Nehem. 
xiii 7-9.) 

But mark it well ; this fidelity of the Bible Society in reference 
to the Apocrypha was not its own, but came of God, who watched 
over it almost in spite of itself. 

In fact, till 1812, they had never given any part of the Apo- 
crypha, but at that time their connexion with the relaxed churches 
on the Continent, and their desire to induce the Eomanists not to 
refuse their Bibles, led them by degrees to descend to arrangements, 
in order to gain them. 1 Without even printing the Apocrypha in 
England, they allowed themselves in 1821, silently to permit their 
insertion in a Bible printed at Toulouse, and later, in ] 824, at the 
request of a Eoman Catholic priest, in an edition which was 
printed at their expense in Germany, for the German Eomanists. 
It was an ill-judged compliance, of which they did not at first 
perceive all the evil, and they only allowed it on the Continent in 
the deceptive hope of gaining some souls to the reading of the 
Bible. This was to do evil that good might come; the evil of 
profaning the Book of God by the introduction of false books ; and 
the evil, not less great, of presenting themselves to the world, as if 
they called in question the authenticity of the Oracles of God, their 
canon, and their integrity. But in 1824 the goodness of God 
raised up in Scotland, to lead them back into the right way, emi- 
nent and faithful men, 2 who reproved the society to the face, as 

1 Lives of Robert and James Haldane; London, 1852, p. 513. 

2 Among others, Dr Andrew Thomson, one of the greatest men of his time, 
possessing a colossal mind; but, still more, the faithful Robert Haldane, that man 
of God, to whom Geneva owes an eternal debt of gratitude for the admirable 
work he accomplished among the students in theology. He converted almost all 
of them to Jesus Christ by his powerful biblical instructions and his prayers. 



620 



THE GEEAT MANIFESTATIONS OF PEOVIDENCE. 



Paul at Antioch, and for a very similar reason, " withstood Peter, 
because he was to be blamed," (Gal. ii. 11,) and because by his 
weakness he greatly endangered the interests of the truth. 

Thus these faithful men led the Bible Society back into the 
right path, as Paul led back the apostle Peter, and brought it to 
declare aloud, that henceforward it should withhold all grants to 
societies which joined the Apocrypha to the Sacred Volume. This 
controversy, which lasted twelve years, was very beneficial in all 
respects. By the issue to which God brought it, it was for the 
Bible Society a restoration ; for the cause of the canon, a confir- 
mation ; for all Christians, a lesson of uprightness, and a fresh 
occasion for adoring the Providence that watched over the written 
Word, and that for thirty-three centuries has maintained, from age 
to age, and by various ways, the integrity of its canon. 

Such then, as regards the Old Testament, is the important 
testimony rendered by the Bible Society to the canon ; but as 
regards the New Testament, its answer is still more simple and 
more significant. 

676. We are asked to state what is the mind of the Church on 
this canon after 1800 years of its existence. 

To reply, we have had for half a century an advantage which 
our predecessors never had. This great Society, with its retinue 
of ten thousand societies freely formed in both hemispheres, is 
unanimous ; it is so in every language ; it is so all over the earth ; 
it has never ceased to be so ; and since its birth it has distributed 
more than fifty millions of sacred copies, always in harmony on this 
important point. Preceding ages have seen nothing like it ; and 
this encouragement was reserved by the goodness of God for our 
days ; because all are arrived at the age of missions. How greatly, 
indeed, is this fact suited to confirm our faith ! How luminously 
does it shew us that God makes the same use of the Christian 
people for the testimony to His Scriptures, which He has made 
for three thousand years of the Jewish people, good or bad, with 
so striking an invariableness ! 

May we not say of the Bible Society, and of its ten thousand 
sister societies in the two hemispheres, that they are, as it were, 
the comitia of the whole Christian world, and give us its judgment 
on the important question of the Scriptures, as the comitia in the 



THE BEITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY. G21 

Campus Martins did for the great affairs of the Eoman people 
assembled by curial, by centuries, or by tribes ? What does this 
great body everwhere attest ? It has but one and the same answer 
all over the earth ; you never hear a single discordant voice in the 
ten thousand societies ; never has a single page varied in its fifty 
millions of volumes. 

" The sacked canon," it answers, " is composed of twenty- 
seven BOOKS, AND THEY ARE THE FOLLOWING : — 

"The Four Gospels, the Book of the Acts of the 
Apostles, the Fourteen Epistles of Paul, the Seven 
Epistles of James, Peter, John, and Jude, and the Revela- 
tion of Jesus Christ to His servant John." 

This answer, we have said, is given by the representatives of 
the Christian world without one dissenting voice on its greatest 
affair, on the inspired Scriptures, on the books which the Christian 
Church must regard as the Word of God. 

677. No doubt it will be here objected, that what we are 
pleased to call the comitia of the Christian world, — far from 
speaking on the part of all Christendom, — represents, after all, 
only the churches of every name where the use of the Holy 
Scripture is honoured ; while, on the contrary, another moiety of 
Christendom marches under the orders of the Roman Pontiff, who, 
since the birth of the Bible Society, has always made it his first 
care, at the beginning of each reign, to anathematise it solemnly 
as the work of Satan. 

It is true, we reply, that they have all anathematised it; 
Leo XII. in 1823, Pius VIII. in 1829, Gregory XVI. in 1831, 
and Pius IX. in 1818. But this fact only renders the unanimity 
of all the representatives of the Christian world more striking as 
regards the canon of the New Testament. 

For while the comitia attest, on the question of the canon, the 
admirable unanimity of all Christian people where the use of the 
written Word is honoured, we are not ignorant at the same time 
that all these very popes and all their adherents have for the 
New Testament the same canon as ourselves. 

They vote therefore with the comitia. 

They do not anathematise the societies for having a false canon ; 
but only for the act of circulating the true canon indiscriminately 



622 



THE GEEAT MANIFESTATIONS OF PEOVIDENCE. 



over all the earth. Tor every one perfectly knows that the popes 
receive absolutely the same catalogue of the New Testament as 
our Bible societies, without the difference of a single book, a 
single chapter, or a single verse. 

Let us adore, then, that Divine Goodness which thus multiplies 
testimonies, that nothing may be wanting for the confirmation of 
our faith. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



FtN'AL IInFEEENCES. 

678. What striking facts, what powerful proofs have passed in 
review before us, all vying with each other in demonstrating that 
silent and sovereign use which God makes of the churches for the 
unchangeable preservation of His New Testament, a use perfectly 
similar to that which He has made of Israel during thirty-four 
centuries, for the preservation not less unchangeable of His ancient 
oracles ! 

In carrying on this review of the destinies of the New Testa- 
ment, we could easily bring forward many other proofs of the same 
kind, but we are afraid of extending our work beyond all proper 
bounds ; and, besides, our readers will be pleased to recollect that 
the doctrine of the canon is already established as to the oracles of 
Moses and the prophets. It is established by unparalleled facts — 
above all, by the testimony of the Son of God. It only remained 
for us to demonstrate it in regard to the oracles of the New Testa- 
ment, and to the part assigned to all the churches of Christendom. 
It was our business to produce another quite different series of 
striking facts, extending through ages, and not less manifestly pro- 
vidential, — we have produced them. All of them, doubtless, have 
not equal value nor equal force ; but the majority of them seem 
to us irresistible, and, taken in combination, they carry conviction. 

679. And certainly it must be so, that the gates of hell might 
not prevail against the Church, since for this purpose God must 
prevent their prevailing against the Scriptures, on which the 
Church is founded. What should we be — in fact, what would the 
Church be — if God had not guaranteed His Sacred Volume from 
all alteration ? 



624 



FINAL INFEKENCES. 



Moreover, all these new facts are in exact accordance with the 
first ways of God respecting His written Word; they carry on 
harmoniously and uninterruptedly the miracle, thirty-three cen- 
turies in duration, of the deposit committed to the Jewish people. 
Never has there been in the ways of the Lord a gap, a discon- 
tinuity like that which must be acknowledged, if you admit that, 
while the ancient oracles have been committed to the miraculous 
guardianship of a whole people for a hundred generations, the 
guardianship of the new oracles, far more important, and given for 
all the nations of the earth, has not been committed to any one 
for these eighteen hundred years ! But it is not so, and we are 
able to assert that the miracle of the churches, as guardians of the 
canon which has been perpetuated like that of the Jewish people 
as guardians of the Old Testament, presents an ascending pro- 
gression of harmony and beauty. And seeing the Divine purpose 
accomplished in the one case by the constant fidelity of the Jews 
— a fidelity which began in the time of the Trojan war, and has 
never ceased — we must think it highly probable that, if it pleased 
God to give at a later period to the Gentiles another series of 
sacred oracles, He would also choose from among them other de- 
positories commissioned to preserve this treasure till the great day 
of Jesus Christ. And how glorious must be the confirmation of 
our faith, when we have ascertained that this second miracle has 
been accomplished with even greater magnificence than the first ! 

680. Clasp, then, all your Scriptures to your hearts, ye Chris- 
tians of every rank and of every age ! You have them from God. 

Clasp them all with the same tenderness and the same submis- 
sion, the twenty-seven given you by the churches, and the twenty- 
two you receive from the Jews. 1 You hold them from the 
churches, you hold them from the Jews ; but you have them from 
God — from God in their inspiration — from God in their preserva- 
tion. You cannot read them with profit to your souls if they are 
not read with reverence ; and they cannot be read with reverence, 
if not with a conviction of their authenticity and their inspiration. 
It is by this Word thus listened to, as descending from on high, 
that you will receive from God repentance, peace, adoption, joy, 
holiness, and life eternal ! 

1 Divided, we repeat, into thirty-nine books by all Christian churches. 



FINAL INFERENCES. 



625 



681. But for this purpose it is necessary, Christian brethren, 
that you should know your privilege ; it is necessary that you 
avail yourselves of it with God, and before all men ; it is necessary 
that, relying on the doctrine of the canon, you make use of your 
holy books with the same confidence with which, in their time, 
Jesus Christ and His apostles made use of the "oracles com- 
mitted " to Israel ; it is necessary that you should say, " It is 
written." 

The same canon is clearly demonstrated to you; the seals of 
the living God are attached to it. Never forget it. 

It is within the heart, no doubt, that God marks the Scriptures 
for His elect with the incomparable seals of His Spirit ; but you 
have been able to see very clearly also, that, even externally, God has 
marked them with His own seal by means of the wonderful testi- 
mony of all the generations of the Jewish people, and of all the 
generations of the Christian churches throughout the world. 

Bear in mind, then, Christian brethren, the miracle of the Scrip- 
tures, and their Divine preservation. Keep your eyes open to 
these signs of God, and ever guard against that lamentable in- 
attention for which Jesus reproached His disciples when they 
forgot the miracle of the loaves. 

"Perceive ye not yet," He said to them, "neither understand I 
have ye your heart yet hardened ! having eyes, see ye not ? do ye 
not remember ?" (Mark viii. 17.) 

And why did they forget that miracle of the loaves ? Alas ! for 
the same reason that makes us too often forget the miracle of the 
Scriptures, aud which ought, on the contrary, to render it more 
striking. For the reason that the sign, really so full of grandeur, 
was accomplished, as that of the Scriptures has been for so many 
centuries, without noise, without splendour, without parade, and 
with calmness. By natural means the people were seated on the 
grass, and the apostles carried the baskets from group to group. 
But, assuredly, it was not by accident that these five barley loaves 
and two fishes fed five thousand men. And assuredly, also, it is 
not an accident that the collection of the sacred books has been 
guarded for three thousand years, and that all the depositories 
render the same homage all over the earth to the written Word, 
that it may enlighten with the same light all God's elect, Cer- 

2 B 



626 



FINAL INFERENCES. 



tainly the same divine power is in operation to guide and over- 
rule them. 

Christians, forget not the miracle of the loaves ! Forget not 
that of the Scriptures ! 

682. And thou too, young man, who, touched by the Holy 
Word, hast had it in thy heart to preach it to the world, to conse- 
crate to it thy life, and to prepare thyself at a distance from thy 
home by holy studies, go, leave thy country and thy father's house, 
and, since it must be so, set out for the schools of science. 

They are not always the schools of truth, nor of piety ; but go, 
dear youth, and set out with prayer, committing thyself to thy 
Saviour, and putting on for this enterprise <c the whole armour of 
God/' On thy heart the shield of faith, on thy head the helmet 
of the hope of salvation, the girdle of truth on thy loins ; but. 
above all, in thy hand, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word 
of God, In thy left hand Moses and the Prophets, such as the 
Jewish people gave them to the world ; in thy right hand the 
twenty-seven scriptures of the New Testament, such as all the 
Christian churches throughout the world have given them for 
1500 years. 

Guard them, dear youth, and they will guard thee ; guard 
them with reverence, and thou wilt be in safety ; thou wilt pursue 
thy studies under a divine unction ; thou wilt be blessed. " Con- 
tinue thou, Timothy, in the things thou hast learned, knowing of 
whom thou hast learned them." " Avoid oppositions of science, 
falsely so called : which some professing have erred concerning 
the faith," (2 Tim. iii. 14 ; 1 Tim. vi. 20, 21.) 

Never allow thyself to take anything from this Holy Word — 
not the least book — the least epistle ; it is of God thou holdest 
them ; abandon nothing belonging to them, whoever may solicit 
thee, were he the most illustrious of the doctors of thy age, were 
he in thy eyes an angel from heaven. Hast thou not seen their 
aberrations ? Surrender thyself to no man ; God is above every 
human name. Hold fast His Word — it is thy safe-guard; and 
say with David, " Thou art my portion, Lord ; I have said that 
I would keep thy words," (Ps. cxix. 57.) 

If, then, they say to thee, What earnest thou in thy left hand? 
reply, The twenty scriptures of Moses and the Prophets. But 



FINAL INFERENCES. 



627 



who assures thee that they are from God ? The Holy Spirit. I have 
felt His influence. Thou hast perhaps felt it in some passages ; 
but who assures thee that all are equally from God ? God Himself 
has declared that He intrusted them to the Jewish people, and 
the Jewish people have guarded them miraculously. But hast 
thou only this proof? If I had only this proof it would be suffi- 
cient. But I have many others. An astonishing and very nume- 
rous assemblage of marvellous facts, continued through centuries, 
and otherwise inexplicable, attest invincibly to me in this matter 
the intervention of the Lord and His fidelity. Moreover, I possess 
another most absolute and yet most simple proof, which alone 
renders all others superfluous : it is that same sword of the Spirit, 
the twenty-two Scriptures, which I carry in my hands ; Jesus, my 
Saviour and my Master, carried them before me in His ; through 
all His ministry He preached them ; they were presented to Him 
in the synagogues ; He read them there ; He cited them to the 
devil and to men ; He quoted all the books ; He knew them 
without having studied them ; He spoke of them constantly in 
His life, in His sufferings, even on the cross ; and, after He had 
risen from the tomb, " He expounded " them from one end to the 
other to His disciples on the road to Emmaus, beginning at Moses, 
and going through all the prophets, (Luke xxiv. 27.) But our 
schools will teach thee not to receive them as of equal authority, 
and even to retrench superfluous books from this very Bible. 
They may do it ; too often they have done it ; but may God ever 
keep me from having another Bible than that which Jesus Christ 
had. To give up the Bible of Jesus Christ is to give Him up, 
and to give Him up ! — rather than that, my God, I would suffer 
twenty deaths ! 

Such, dear youth, will be thy answer for the Old Testament ; 
but it will not be less decided for the New. If, then, they ask thee 
again, What dost thou carry in thy right hand ? thou wilt answer, 
I carry the sword of the Spirit — the inspired Word of the New 
Testament — the twenty-seven books given by Jesus Christ to found 
His Church and to extend it to the ends of the earth, looking 
forward to the time when "all the kingdoms of the world shall 
become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ/' But who 
assures thee, itgain, that these books are of God? I have felt it. 



G28 



FINAL INFERENCES. 



Yes ; perhaps for some ; but that they are all from God ? Dost 
thou not know that there is not one which is not disputed in our 
schools? I know it; but I know equally well that not ona of 
your schools can justify or sustain their objections by valid 
reasons. I know, besides, as to the twenty-two homologoumena, 
forming thirty-five thirty-sixths of the whole New Testament, 
that, by science itself, it may be established that there has never 
been a book in the whole field of literature, ancient or modern, 
sacred or profane, of an authenticity so powerfully guaranteed ; so 
that already, on grounds of reason, all the attacks of your schools 
ought to confine their efforts to that thirty-sixth remaining part 
of the Sacred Volume. And yet, even for that thirty-sixth part, 
I have very simple and powerful reasons of assurance, within the 
reach of the humblest Christians, and of the least cultivated 
classes ; for these classes have every day before their eyes a proof 
for the New Testament quite similar to that which the ancient 
people had for the Old Testament ; for God has chosen a people 
entirely new to whom His new oracles have been intrusted, in 
order to be on their part the witness and guarantee. 

" Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to the 
revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world 
began, but now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the 
prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, 
made known to all nations for the obedience of faith ; to God the 
only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen," (Eom. 
xvi. 25-27.) 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCRYPHA. 



(chapter v.) 

thirty-six propositions transferred here, and reserved 
for the end of the volume. 

Section First. 

history of the apocrypha to the tbie of the 
council of trent. 

484. The universal Church of the second, third, and fourth 
centuries, as we shall soon shew, had never ceased to receive the 
Old Testament, such as the Jews gave them to us, and carefully 
distinguished the apocryphal from the canonical books, when God 
raised up among the Latins a great light in the person of Jerome. 
This illustrious doctor, born in 331, was to be, during eleven cen- 
turies — to the time of the Council of Trent — their counsellor and 
guide in the study of the Scriptures. He had, in fact, recalled 
them, more than any other person, to the pure sources of the 
biblical Word, and had translated for them, for the first time, the 
Old Testament according to the original Hebrew, 1 thus giving 
them that famous version which they named the Vulgate, and 
which at a later period they declared to be canonical in all its 
parts. Jerome indeed has enjoyed such credit in the Church of 
Rome, that, in her Breviary, she thanks God "for having raised 
up in His Church this blessed and illustrious doctor for the 
exposition of the Holy Scriptures," so that, in our day, every year, 
on the 30th of September, all the priests of the Papacy, from one 
end of the world to the other, are bound to repeat this prayer in 

1 All prior versions had been made according to the Greek of the Septuagint. 



630 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCEYPHA. 



Latin — " Deus, qui Ecclesiae tuae in exponendis Sacris Scrip- 
taris beatum Hieronymum cloctorem maximum provider % e dignatus 
es, . . ."1 o.^^nB 

And it was in the same spirit that, to the time of the Council 
of Trent, the Church of Borne, even in the sixteenth century, had 
never ceased to place the Prefaces of Jerome at the head of all 
her editions of the Bible, and even a very short time before the 
Council, all these prefaces declared that Christians ought care- 
fully to distinguish the canonical books from the apocryphaL 
See, for example, that of Birckman, at Antwerp, (1526,) the literal 
version of the Bible, published at Lyons by the Dominican Sanctes 
Pagnini, (1528,) and that which Eobert Stephens gave in his 
edition of Vatablus, (1 545.) 

485. But what do we see from the time of the Council of 
Trent % Everything has so changed in relation to Jerome in the 
Church of Eome that, though this father could declare in the fourth 
century that he rejected the history of Susanna and the Song of 
the Three Hebrew Children, and that he regarded the History of 
Bel and the Dragon as a fable ; and though, nevertheless, he has 
been for eleven centuries in the Church of Borne not only, as the 
Breviary says, one of the greatest doctors, (doctor maximus,) but 
one of the saints in Paradise who are to be invoked, yet the 
anathema was pronounced there, April 15, 1546, against whoever 
should speak of the eleven apocryphal scriptures as he has spoken 
of them. 

And yet the testimony of this father on those eleven apocryphal 
books is so abundant, and, at the same time, so very explicit, that, 
to escape from it, the defenders of the council have felt them- 
selves obliged to have recourse to the most pitiful evasions. 

"This father/' says the famous bishop Catherin, "did not 
mean to give us his own opinion so much as that of the Jews." 
Whoever has read Jerome will appreciate this paltry subterfuge. 2 

" He varies/'' says the Jesuit Gretser, " as to the number of the 
books, and is not logical/' He is very logical. 

1 Brev. Kom., Sep. xxx.,p. 882; ed. Paris, 1840. 

2 Dr Herbst the Catholic (Einleit. ins A. T.) refuses to refer the assertions of 
Jerome to the Roman unity, and confines himself to look at them as the opinions 
of an individual. 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCRYPHA. 



631 



" When he was induced to put this stumbling-block in the way 
by his intercourse with the Jews of Palestine," says the Cardinal 
du Perron, " he was not in the maturity of his studies." He was 
fifty-seven when he went to settle in Palestine ; he was seventy- 
eifdit when he wrote his decision against the books of Susanna, 
the Three Hebrew Children and Bel ; he was eighty-seven when 
he wrote his decision against Baruch. 1 

" He was mistaken," says the same Du Perron, " regarding the 
Epistle to the Hebrews/' He made no mistake whatever. On 
the contrary, we are indebted to him for bringing the Boman 
Church back from its error. " JSfos et Apocalypsin et Epistolam 
Pauli ad Rebraeos recipimus" he says in his Epistle to Darda- 
nus. 

" Better instructed afterwards in the judgment of the Church, 
Jerome retracted his own," says Du Perron again. This is equally 
false. 

" It is manifest that the authority of Jerome is not of great 
weight in this controversy," M. Malon, the present Bishop of 
Bruges, has lately said. " He at first expressed," the same writer 
adds, 2 " an opinion contrary to the belief of the Church ; and 
when he was accused of abandoning the tradition of the apostles, 
he disavowed the doctrine charged upon him — he repudiated the 
canon of the Jews." On this Dr Wordsworth properly remarks, 
" M. Malon refers to the second apology of Jerome against Bufinus 
to sustain this unwarrantable assertion ; but after most carefully 
reading this writing of Jerome, I confidently reply, that he retracts 
nothing !" 3 

Lastly, other modern doctors, such as the celebrated M. Perrone, 
now head of the College of the Jesuits at Rome, and others besides, 
after having sought for different evasions, have seen no other refuge 
but the unfortunate theory of " development," employed by Dr 
Manning. 

" The canon of the Old Testament," says M. Perrone, not having 

1 Comment on Jeremiah. See Cave, Scriptur, Eccl. Hist. Lit, fol., torn i., p. 280. 
Basil, 1741. 

2 Leeture de la Sainte Bible, Louvaine, 184G. Vol. ii., p. 57. 

3 On the Canon of the Scriptures, and on the Apocrypha, by C. Wordsworth, 
D.D., London, 1848. Append., p. 24. 



632 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCEYPHA. 



been completed by the Church in the fourth century, the apocryphal 
books were not canonised, (canonici nequaquam erant.)" 1 

According to this system, a book is from God in the sixteenth 
century which had never been so to Israel to the time of Jesus Christ, 
and which had not been so to the Christian Church for fourteen 
centuries after Him, This would be a new transubstantiation 
under always the same species of a book in which nothing visible 
was changed ! 

486. Of sixteen writings which Jerome rejects as apocryphal, 
and we reject with him, Rome admits eleven as Divine, (cum 
unus Deus sit auctor.) 

They are, first of all, the seven following books : — Tobit, Judith, 
First and Second of Maccabees, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, and Baruch ; 
then three separate Greek fragments, added to the Hebrew canoni- 
cal text of Daniel, (The Song of the Hebrew Children, the History 
of Susanna, The History of Bel ;) then, seven chapters in Greek 
added to the Hebrew text of Esther. 

After the catalogue of the sacred books was enlarged by these 
eleven apocryphal writings, the council added this anathema : " And 
if any one do not receive as sacred and canonical these books entire 
with all their parts, according as it has been customary to read 
them in the universal Church, and as they are found in the ancient 
edition of the Latin Vulgate ; and if he despise, knowingly and in- 
tentionally, the above-named tradition — let him be anathema ! " 2 

487. When the fifty 3 ecclesiastics assembled at Trent, April 8, 
] 546, dared to issue such a decree, which for the first time placed 
the apocryphal books on a level with the Scriptures of God, they not 
only belied the only true depositories of His Divine Oracles, " they 
fabricated at their pleasure," says Bishop Cosin, (in his excellent 
work on the canon,) 4 " a new article of faith, of which neither the 

1 The Church of Rome rejects only the five following — The Prayer of Manasseh, 
the Third of Esdras, the Third and Fourth of Maccabees. 

2 " Si quis autem libros ipsos integros, cum omnibus suis partibus, prout in 
Ecclesia catholica legi consueverunt, et in veteri Vulgata Latina editione habentur, 
pro sacris et canonicis non susceperit ; et traditiones praedictas guiens et prudens 
contempserit — anathema sit ! " 

3 Forty-five bishops and five cardinals, all, or almost all Italians, and pensioners 
of the Pope. See the following Proposition. 

4 Scholastical History of the Canon ; London, 1672 and 1683 ; in 4to. See the 
articles 165 to 175, 177 to 179. We take from this work the greater number of 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCRYPHA. 



633 



other churches of Christendom nor their own church had ever 
heard spoken of before ; and they created in the universal Church 
a deeper schism than the wickedness of men had ever produced." 

They proceeded even to the length of excluding all those, who 
like Jesus Christ and His apostles, like the ancient fathers, like 
the author of their Vulgate, like the whole existing Church of the 
East, more ancient than their own, refused to attribute to the 
apocryphal books the same authority as to the writings of Moses 
and the Prophets. So that their canon is no longer that of the 
Hebrew nation, nor of Jesus Christ, nor of the universal primitive 
Church, nor even that of the ancient Latin Church for 1500 years. 
It is the canon of the Jesuits, or the new canon of the Council 
of Trent, 

And it is thus, then, by leaving to the wandering of their own 
thoughts, men whose pretensions rose to the height of proclaiming 
themselves the sole interpreters of His Sacred Word, God, by a 
most righteous judgment, has permitted that they, alone of all 
the sects of Christendom, have by a solemn decree foisted eleven 
human uninspired books into His Sacred Oracles ! And this 
nineteen hundred years after the era when every prophet, waiting 
for the Messiah, had disappeared from the midst of Israel ! 

488. But more than this. This act will appear more astonish- 
ing, if possible, when the profane levity with which it was con- 
summated is taken into account. It w T as a surprisal, a coup d'&at 
of the Church of Home, resembling that which has taken place in 
our own days, when the new dogma respecting the Virgin Mary 
was fabricated. Perhaps it would be right to say that the dogma 
of 1546 was framed in the Council of Trent with a greater con- 
tempt of the Church and its rights, than that with which Pius IX. 
is reproached for throwing from the Vatican, on what lie calls 
" the universal Church," his doctrine of an Immaculate Conception 
by the Saviour's grandmother. We shall not here speak of the 
intrigues which for a long time eluded, and at last prepared and 
governed the council. History sufficiently asserts them. We wish 
only to call to mind the nature of the sittings from which this 
decree issued. 

the testimonies which follow. See also the History of the Council of Trent, by- 
Paul Sarpi. Book ii., arts. 37, 40, 43, 54. Edit., London, 173G; pp. 220, 241. 



634 APPENDIX ON THE APOCKYPHA. 

When the Pope, in 1545, had sent his three legates to Trent, they 
found on their arrival no one there, excepting the bishop of the 
place, and, a few days after, three Italian bishops. Two months 
passed away before they were recruited by twenty other prelates, 
the greater part also Italians ; so that, ashamed to open with so 
small a company a universal council which Europe believed to be 
destined to reform the Church " in its chief and in its members," 
they persuaded the Pope to adjourn it for eight months. A 
pension of twenty ducats was allowed to each of those bishops 
who were poor, to keep them from growing impatient. But in 
December, they found their number increased to forty-three, and 
opened this council, called oecumenical, which was about to acid 
so many new doctrines to the dogmas already professed, to change 
the canon, to set unwritten traditions on a level with the oracles 
of the living God, and probably close for ever the era of councils. 

The Council of Chalcedon, when, in 451, it sanctioned the decrees 
of Laodicea, and in so doing refuted the Apocrypha, was composed 
of six hundred and thirty bishops j 1 but at Trent, when the last 
of the councils was opened, there were only, besides the Pope's 
three legates and the bishop of the place, four archbishops, twenty- 
eight bishops, three abbots, and four generals of orders. And 
further, two of these archbishops, Olaiis the Goth, and Eobert of 
Scotland, were mere nominal bishops, pensioners of the Pope, and 
sent to make up the number. 

The first and the second session (December 12 and January 
7) were devoted only to preliminaries ; on the third (February 4) 
the Nicene Creed was recited ; but on the fourth (April 8) the 
anathemas began, and it closed, after four different opinions had 
been proposed, by cursing the Christians who would not receive 
their new canon of the Scriptures, and who would not set on the 
same level {pari pietatis affectu et reverentia) the indefinite body 
of unwritten traditions, (tanquam vel ore tenus a Christo, vel a 
Spiritu Sancti dictatas) 

Such, then, was the decision adopted in the name of the Uni- 
versal Church by the majority of these forty-five ecclesiastics, and 
a very small number of persons who arrived after the opening of 
the council. " And so," says Bishop Cosin, " while they could 

1 Jean le Sueur. 4e partie ; p. 374. 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCRYPHA. 



635 



not find either father or council, scholar or writer who in former 
ages had ever spoken like themselves, they decided to pass a decree 
so vainly called oecumenical. In fact, of the Greek Chnrch there 
was not a single member ; from England no one, (Richard Pates 
had not arrived ;) from the Helvetic or German Churches, no one ; 
from France itself at most only two prelates ; from Spain, five ; from 
Illyria, one. All the rest were Italians ; 1 and even many among 
them pensioners of the Pope, bishops of small places sent to vote 
with the legates, and very ignorant. 2 ... So that, supposing 
each of them a representative of the people and of the clergy, by 
whom he might pretend to be sent, we may say with trnth, that 
this convention did not represent the thousandeth part of 
Christendom." 

Section Second 

unanimity of the testimony op the church against the 
decree of the council of trent. 

489. We are going to shew with what unanimity the testimony 
of the whole Church was raised against the admission of the Apo- 
crypha ; but many other reasons relating to these books ought 
to have deterred the council from placing them on a level 
with the oracles of God. We do not wish to explain them at 
large, and shall content ourselves with indicating them here very 
rapidly : — 

(1.) While all the books of the Old Testament are written in 
Hebrew, 3 the apocryphal books are only in Greek. 

(2.) In the drama of Susanna we meet with instances of play- 
ing upon words which have no value or meaning, excepting in 
Greek, and which absolutely could not be imagined or employed 

1 Sleidan, Comment., lib. xvii. — " In his duo Galli ; quinque Hispani ; Illyricua 
unus; reliqui omnes Itali." 

2 Some did not even know Latin. " Eorum aliqui ncc bene Latino lcgere nove- 
runt." — Alph. de Castro, De Ilaer. Punit., lib. iii. 

3 Or at least in Aramean. Jerome is said to Lave translated Tobit and Judith 
from the Chaldee, and to have seen the first book of Maccabees in Hebrew. The 
Preface of Ecclesiasticus represents that book as translated from the Hebrew. 
(See the Einleitung of the Catholic professor, Welte ; Freid., 1844.) Yet Hengsten- 
berg (Beitriige, i., 292) believes that the Greek text is the original of the first Macca- 
bees. Jahn (Introd., ii., 902, 922) expresses the same opinion about Tobit and 
Judith. 



636 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCRYPHA. 



but in a country where the Greek was the vernacular language. 
(Vers. 55 and 58.) 

(3.) All these books were composed after the spirit of prophecy 
had entirely ceased in Israel. 

(4.) Many learned men (as Moldenhauer) have given very strong 
reasons for believing that some of the apocryphal books, such as 
Tobit, the Fourth book of Esdras, and, perhaps, Wisdom, are pos- 
terior even to the birth of Jesus Christ. 1 

(5.) None of their authors directly pretend to inspiration, ex- 
cepting that of the book of Wisdom, who, while calling himself 
Solomon, discloses his imposture by citing many passages in Isaiah 
and Jeremiah, and ' representing his contemporaries as already 
subject to their enemies, (ix. 7, 8 ; xv. 14; compare 1 Kings 
iv. 20-25.) 

(6.) Very far from pretending to be inspired, many profess not 
to be so. (See the Prologue to Ecclesiasticus ; 1 Mace. iv. 46, 
and xi. 27 ; 2 Mace. ii. 23, and xv. 38.) 

(7.) No part of the Apocrypha is found quoted by Jesus Christ, 
or by any apostle. 2 

(8.) Neither Philo nor Josephus cites them ; while, on the con- 
trary, the testimony of Josephus, alleged by Eusebius^ and cited 
by us, 4 is most decisive on the fixation of the inspired books, and 
on the totally uninspired character of other Jewish writings. 

(9.) The apocryphal books contain many fables, opposed both 
to historic truth and to the Holy Scriptures. See Bel and, the 
Dragon, the History of Tobit, &c. (Compare 2 Mace. i. 18 with 
Ezra iii. 2, 3 ; and 2 Mace. iii. 5-8 with Jer. iii. 16.) 

(1 0.) The first and second books of Maccabees contradict one 
another. In the one, Antiochus Epiphanes died at Babylon, 
(1 Mace. vi. 16 ;) in the other, he is killed and beheaded by the 
Persian priests in the temple of Nanea, (2 Mace. i. 14-16, &c. ;) 
then, afterwards, (ix. 28,) he is said to have died " in a strange 
land, in the mountains/' The second book is evidently very inferior 
to the first. 

1 Home's Introduction. Vol. ii., pp. 326-329. 1818. 

2 See Propp. 465, 466. See also Keerl., Die Apocryphenfrage ; Leipz., 1855. 

3 Hist. Eccl., iii., 9, 10. 

4 Contra Apion., 1., 8. See Propp. 435, 457. 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCRYPHA. 



GS7 



(11.) These same books commend in many passages immoral 
acts. We may see examples more than sufficient in the preface 
placed at the head of the Apocrypha, in the excellent French 
Bible of Des Marets. 

490. " After having made an exact and complete review of all 
the Church has professed in all ages and in all countries relating 
to the canon of the Old Testament/' says Bishop Cosin, " I con- 
clude that the voice of all ages and of all portions of the people 
of God bear testimony against the decree of the Council of 
Trent." 1 

Fully to appreciate the force of this historical testimony, we 
must follow the author from age to age, and from country to 
country. He passes under review — In Palestine and Syria, 
Justin Martyr, 2 Eusebius, 3 Jerome, 4 and John of Damascus. 5 
In the apostolic churches of Asia Minor, Melito, 6 Polycrates, 7 
and Onesimus. In Phrygia, Cappadocia, Lycaonia, and Cyprus, 
the Council of Laodicea, 8 St Basil the Great, 9 Amphilochius, 10 

1 Cosin, Hist. Schol. of the Canon. See also Gerhard, De Scriptura Sacra, 
§§ 75-98 ; and Keerl, Die Apocryphen des A. T., § 18 ; Leipz., 1852. 

2 Who neither approves nor cites any of the apocryphal books. 

3 Hist. Eccl., iv., 25; vi., 12. 

4 In 392. Cosin cites thirteen striking testimonies of this father against the 
Apocrypha. See his Prologues, which have served so long as a rule to the Latin 
Church : — " Sicut Judith et Tobiae et Maccabaorum libros legit quidem Fcclesia, 
sed eas inter canonicas Scripturas non recipit ; sic et haec duo volumina (Wisdom 
and Ecclesiasticus) legat ad aedificationem plebis, non ad auctoritatem ecclesiasti- 
corum dogmatum conjirinandam." — In Proverhia, torn, iii., p. 39 ; Paris, 1602. 

5 He reckons only twenty -two books in the Old Testament, like all the Jews. — 
De Fide Orthod., lib. iv., cap. 18. 

6 Bishop of Sardis in the middle of the second century. In 1G0, he made exact 
researches respecting the canonical books of the Old Testament ; and travelled for 
this purpose, Eusebius tells us, (H. E., iv., 26.) He enumerates twenty-two 
books, and excludes the Apocrypha. 

7 Bishop of Ephesus in 160. His testimony to Mclito, (Eusebius, H. E., v., 24.) 

8 Held in 364 for many provinces of Asia; highly esteemed by all the churches 
in those remote ages, having had its canons received into the " Codex Canonum 
Ecclesiae Univ.," where the year of its being held is fixed to be 364. It entirely 
rejects the Apocrypha. 

In 375. He reckons only twenty-two books in the Old Testament.— Philocal, 
cap. iii. 

10 Bishop of Iconium in 378. He gives his catalogue, and excludes the 
Apocrypha from it, (Ep. ad Seleucum.) Among the canonical epistles collected by 
Balsamon. 



638 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCEYPHA. 



and Epiphanius. 1 In Egypt, Clement of Alexandria, 2 Origen, 3 
and the great Athanasius. 4 In the churches of Africa, Julius 
Africanus,^ Tertullian, 6 the great Augustm,? the Council of 
Carthage, 8 Junelius,^ and Primasius. 10 In each of the five Patri- 
archates, Cyril of Jerusalem, 11 Gregory of Nazianzus, 12 Chrysostom 
of Constantinople, 13 Anastasius of Antioch, 14 Pope Gregory, called 
the Great, 1 ^ Nicephorus of Constantinople, 16 and the celebrated 
Balsamon, named Patriarch of Antioch. 1 7 In Greece, Dionysius, 
Antiochus, Adrian, Leontius, Zonaras, Philip, and Callistus. In 
Italy, Philastrius, 18 Kuffinus, 19 Cassiodorus, 20 Antoninus, 21 John 

1 Bishop of Salamis in 374. Reckons the books of the Old Testament as we do. 
— Be Mens, et Ponder. ; Eaer., viii. 

2 Origen's teacher speaks as he does. 

3 In 220. Declares distinctly that the books not included in the twenty-two 
do not belong to the canon. — Apud Euseb. ; Puffin., vi., 25. 

4 He has given us, in 340, a catalogue of canonical books, which he distinguishes 
from ecclesiastical books. He reckons only twenty-two in the Old Testament. — 
Epist. Festalis., opp., torn, i., p. 94, ed. Bened. Opera, apud Balsam., p. 920. 

5 In 222, writing to Origen, he rejects the History of Susanna. — Opera 
Origenis, torn. ii. 

6 In 204. He excludes the Apocrypha from the canon. — Contra Marcion, carm. 
iv., 7. 

7 See Prop. 499, and the following. 8 Ibid. 

9 In 543. He recognises a great difference between the canonical books and the 
ecclesiastical. — Be Partibus Bivinae Legis, lib. i., cap. 7. 

10 In 553. So long after the Council of Carthage held the same views of the 
canon as Jerome and the Jews. — In Apocalyps., cap. iv., v. 

11 In 360. He gave his auditors a catalogue of the Scriptures. It is very explicit- 
— Catecli., iv., vi., and ix. 

12 In 376. Is very explicit and decisive. — In Libro., carm. xxxiii., torn, ii., p. 339. 
See our Prop. 

13 In 390. Declares there are no canonical books besides those written in Hebrew. 
— Horn. iv. in Genes. 

14 Patriarch of Antioch in 560, expressly affirms that God gave twenty-two 
books for His Old Testament. — Hexameron, lib. vii. 

15 Pope in 590. Professes to follow the canon of the ancient Church, as Jerome 
represented it. — Moral. Expos, in Job, lib. xix., cap. xvii., [or xiii.] 

16 Patriarch of Constantinople in 820. Distinguishes the canonical books from 
the controverted and the apocryphal. — Canon Script, ex veteri Codice. 

17 In 1192, died in 1203. In his commentaries on the Council of Carthage. He 
appeals to the Council of Laodicea, and to the epistles of Athanasius, and of 
Gregory of Nazianzus. 

18 In 380, (Be Haeres., cap. de Apocryph.) He rejects Ecclesiasticus. 
39 In 398. Speaks like Jerome. — In Symb. Apost., sect, xxxv., xxxvi. 

20 Consul of Rome, in 550, (Be Bivinis Lectionibus, cap. xii.). Begins with 
Jerome's catalogue, and then joins to it the books of Augustin's enumeration. 

21 See Prop. 515. 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCRYPHA. 



C39 



Picus de Mirandola, 1 and Cardinal Cajetan. 2 In Spain, Isidore 
of Seville, 3 Cardinal Hugo, 4 Paul de Burgos,5 at first Bishop of 
Carthagena; Alphonsus Tostatus, 6 and the celebrated Cardinal 
Ximenes,7 so renowned for his Polyglott Bible and his biblical 
researches. In France, Hilary of Poictiers, 8 the theologians of 
Marseilles, 9 Victorinus of Poictiers, the bishops of Charlemagne, 
Agobard of Lyons, 10 Kadulph of Flavigny, Honorius of Autim, 
Peter of Cluny, Hugo and Richard of St Victor at Paris, John Be- 
leth, Peter de Cell, Hervaeus Natalis of Brittany, James Le Fevre 
d'Etaples, and Jodochus Clichtoveus. 11 In Germany and in the 
Low Countries, the Archbishop of Mentz, Raban Maurus, Walafrid 
Strabo the Benedictine, the monk Herman Contractus, Ado Arch- 
bishop of Vienne; Rupert de Tuits, the famous ordinary and inter- 
lineary gloss on the Bible, {Praef. de Libr. Canon;) the gloss 
on the Canon Law by John Semeca, (Dist. 16;) Nicolas deLyra, 12 
Dionysius a Ryekel, the Carthusian ; the celebrated Erasmus, 13 John 
Driedo of Louvaine, 34 and John Perus, 15 died at Mentz in 1554, 
nine years after the opening of the Council of Trent. Lastly, in 
England, the venerable Bede, 16 Alcuin, the companion of Charle- 
magne ;17 Giselbert, John of Salisbury, Brito, (the commentator on 

I See Prop. 491, (a, b, c, d, e, i.) 2 Ibid. 

3 In G36. He distinguishes, after the Law, Prophets, and Hagiographa, a fourth 
class of books, which do not belong to the Hebrew canon of the Old Testament. 
— Lib. vi., Originum, cap. i. 

4 In 1241. Maintains the distinction of canonical and ecclesiastical books. — Prol. 
in Jos. 

5 In 1430. — Acldit. i., ad cap. i. ; Ester., cap. xiii. 

6 See Prop. 491, (a, b, c, d, e, i.) 7 Ibid. 

8 In 350. Agreed with Athanasius on the Apocrypha as well as on Arianism. — 
Prol. Explanat. in Psalmor. 

9 In 426. They rejected the book of Wisdom. — Hilary of Aries in his Epistle to 
Augustin. 

10 In 855. Asserts that the Old Testament has only twenty-two books of divine 
puthority. — De Privil. ct Jure Saccrdot. 

II See Prop. 491, (a, b, c, d, e, ?'.) 

12 In 1320. Is very explicit (Praefat. in Tobiam) in excluding the Apocrypha 
from the canon. 

la See Prop. 491, (h, I; l.) u Ibid. » Ibid. 

lb In 730. He agrees with Jerome and Tcrtullian. — InApocal. iv., lib. iv. ; 
Comment, in Lib. Reg. 

17 In 800. Rejected as aporrj/phal and doubtful the book of Ecclesiasticus. — 
Adv. Elipantum, lib. i., col. 941. 



640 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCEYPHA. 



Jerome's Prologue;) William Occam,* Thomas Anglicus, or Thomas 
Walden,2 sent to the Council of Constance. 

All these witnesses, of whom a great number are saints canon- 
ised by the Church of Rome, however carried away they may have 
been on other points by the errors of their age, are unanimous on 
this — that is to say, in distinguishing the apocryphal books from 
the oracles of God, or rejecting them entirely. 

491. But in order that some voices from this cloud of witnesses 
may be more distinctly heard, and to shew more clearly by what 
new and sudden lapse the Church of Rome, aggravating her 
schism, has continued to depart from the truth, we will shew the 
unanimity of the authors who spoke within her pale even at the 
beginning of the sixteenth century, and at the near approach of 
the Council of Trent. 

(a.) From 1502 to 1517, Francis Ximenes, cardinal, archbishop 
of Toledo, grand inquisitor, founder of the university of Alcala, 
confessor to the queen, and governor of Castile, edited the cele- 
brated Polyglott Bible which bears his name. Now the very pre- 
face of this great work warns the readers, " that the books of 
Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, and the Maccabees, as well 
as the additions to Esther and Daniel, are not canonical scriptures/' 
All those persons who agreed with the great Cardinal Ximenes 
were thought fit to be anathematised thirty years after by the 
council. 

(6.) In 1506, about the same time, the Vulgate was published, 
with the commentary of Lyra, and the ordinary gloss, at Bale. 
Now, the preface of this Bible takes care to establish a difference 
between the twenty-two books of our ancient canon and those 
which are added in the new, as a difference between what is cer- 
tain and what is doubtful. It goes even so far as to tax, not 
only with carelessness and ignorance, but with folly, those who 
believe that all these books are worthy of equal veneration, be- 
cause they see them printed in the same volume as the Bible. 

(c.) In 1510, the famous John Picus, Count of Mirandola, was 

1 In 1 330. Positively rejects the Apocrypha from the number of the canonical 
books. — Dialog., part iii., tract, i., lib. iii, cap. 16. 

2 In 1420. Acknowledges only the twenty-two canonical books. — Doctrinal. 
Fid., torn, i., lib. ii., art. 2, cap. 22. 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCRYPHA. 



641 



living, "that man so distinguished/' said Bellarmin, "for his 
genius and learning/' 1 He says, in speaking of the Apocrypha, 
"Yet I believe that we must firmly adhere to St Jerome's opinion, 
by whose authority I have been guided." " His testimony," he 
adds, "is esteemed most sacred by the Church." 2 

(d.) In 1514, James Le Fevre d'Etaples, doctor of the univer- 
sity of Paris, a man in great repute at that time, says of the apo- 
cryphal books, while holding them in respect, " They are no part of 
the canon, nor of the first and supreme authority in the Church. (De 
canone non sunt, et in prima supremdque Ecclesiae auctoritate.)" 

(e.) In 1520, Jodochus Clichtoveus, (Josse Clichtove,) a Sor- 
bonist, and canon of Chartres, in his Commentary on John of 
Damascus, (lib. iv., cap. 14,) excludes all the apocryphal books 
from the canon of the Holy Scriptures. " Et non modo hi duo 
libri" he says, in speaking of the books of Wisdom and Ecclesias- 
ticus, "non numerati sunt in canone sacrorum librorum, sed 
etiam Tobias, Judith, et libri Maccabaeorum d numero canoni- 
corum voluminum V. T. sunt exclusi ; quaemadmodum testatur 
Hieronymus" 

(f) In 1525, Louis Vives, one of the most learned men of his 
time, in his commentaries on Augustin's City of God, rejects, 
besides the third and fourth books of Esdras, the histories of Bel 
and of Susanna. Moreover, he also rejects the books of Wisdom, 
Ecclesiasticus, and the Maccabees, attributing the first to Philo the 
Jew ; 3 the second to the Son of Sirach, (who lived a hundred years 
after the last of the prophets ;) and, as to the third, " not knowing," 
he says, 4 " whether Jerome has not attributed it to the historian 
Josephus." 

(g.) In 152G, George of Venice, a friar minor, (cordelier,) in his 
Harmony of the World, excludes all these books from the canon. 
(Cant, iii., torn, viii., mod. 12.) 

(h.) In 1530, the illustrious Erasmus, at that time of such high 
repute in the Catholic world, though hated by the monks, in his 
Exposition of the A postles Creed and the Decalogue, (Catech. iv., 

1 De Script. — " Vir ingenio et doctrine maximum." 

2 " Firmiter tamen haerendum credo sententiae Hieronymi cujus auctoritas 
me movit." " Et demum eju3 testimonium ab Ecelesia pro aanctissimo habetur." 
— De Online Crcdenti, i., v. 

3 Lib. xvii., cap. 20. 4 Lib. xviii., cap. 36. 



642 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCRYPHA, 



sub fin) he speaks of all the apocryphal books as received much 
later, solely for ecclesiastical use, (in usum ecclesiasticum.l) He 
adds, that many attributed the book of Wisdom to Philo. And 
in his preface to Daniel he is astonished that any one could read 
in the churches such histories as those of Bel and the Dragon. 2 
" It is certainly of importance," he says elsewhere, " to know what 
the Church approves, and in what sense it does so, (quid quo 
animo comprobet Ecclesia)" " For while she attributes an equal 
authority (parem auctoritatem) to the writings of the Jews, and 
to the four Gospels, she certainly would not attach the same weight 
to the books of Judith, Tobit, and Wisdom, as to the Pentateuch 
of Moses." 3 

(i) In 1534, the celebrated Cardinal Cajetan (Thomas de Vio, 
Bishop of Gaeta) sent as a legate into Germany by Pope Leo X. 
to bring back Luther to the Church, was then regarded as a 
" general oracle," says his contemporary Strozzi;* " almost all the 
theologians of the Church of Eome had recourse to him ; (ad quern 
velut commune oraculum seu pro Sacraruni Litterarum invo- 
lucris .... seu pro altioribus theologice mysteriis .... confugere 
solebamus.)" 

But Cajetan, on the question of the apocryphal books often ex- 
presses the same opinion as ourselves, either in his Commentaries 
on Thomas Aquinas, or in those he wrote at Rome itself, or very 
near the Council of Trent, on the Holy Scriptures. 5 

He says, on the first chapter of the Hebrews, " The books that 
Jerome has handed down to us as canonical, (canonicas tradidit,) 
we hold to be canonical, and those which he has separated from 
the canon, (a canone discrevit) we hold to be out of the canon, 
(extra canonem habemus)" But we have already said with what 
decision Jerome has expressed himself against the Apocrypha. 

1 Opp., v., 977, (ed. Troben., 1540.) 

2 Epist. ad Divinar. Litterar. Studiosos, Praefexa, torn, iv., oper. Hieron. 

3 " Certe non vult idem esse pondus Judith, Tobiae, et Sapientiae libris quod 
Mosis Pentateucho." 

4 In the dedicatory espistle at the head of his works. 

5 The public library at Geneva possesses the Commentaries of Cajetan, In 
Omnes Authenticos Veteris Testam. Historiales Libros, printed at Eome in 1533. 
The Pope's Penitentiary superintended the edition. Cajetan enumerates the books 
on which he has commented, — " Omissis reliquis ab Hieronymo inter apocrypha 
supputatis." 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCRYPHA. 



643 



" After Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi," he says on Isaiah xlix. 
21, "I have seen no other prophet till John the Baptist !" 

Cajetan also says, in his dedicatory epistle to Pope Clement VII. 
(at the head of his commentary on the historical books of the Old 
Testament) — an epistle approved by the Pope — " Most holy father, 
the whole Latin Church is under the greatest obligations to St 
Jerome on account of the distinction he has made between the 
canonical books and the uncanonical. He has delivered us from 
the oppeobpjum which would have rested upon us in the eyes of the 
Hebrews, (ab Hebrceorum opprobio,) of appearing to regard as 
part of the canon, books and portions of books which the Hebrews 
enterely want, {quod fingamus nobis antique canonis libros aat 
librorum partes quibus ipsi penitus carent.)" 

He says again, on the last chapter of Esther, " These books are 
not canonical (non sunt regulares) to confirm the matters of faith, 
{ad firmandum ea quae sunt fidei") " But yet," he adds, in the 
sense in which Augustin sometimes spoke, " they might be called 
canonical — that is to say, books serving as a rule (regulares) to be 
employed for the edification of the faithful! 1 

It is thus that Jerome had said, (on ihe books of Solomon, to 
Chromatius and Heliodorus,) " In the same way as the Church 
reads the books of the Maccabees, Tobit, and Judith, without 
receiving them into the number of the canonical writings, so we 
may treat Ecclesiasticus and the book of Wisdom, reading them 
for edification, and not to authorise dogmas. (Sic et haec duo 
volumina legat ad aedificationem plebis, non ad auctoritatem 
ecclesiasticorum dogmatum confirmandum.)" 

Thus, then, it is very evident that, even to the days of Luther 
and Cajetan, (his opponent on behalf of the Pope,) in 1533 — that 
is to say, eleven or twelve years before the Council of Trent be- 
gan, our entire doctrine on the Apocrypha, which is that of the 
so-called orthodox Catholic Church of the East, was held at Borne 
as good and orthodox. 

Cajetan, * the oracle of the Roman Church," says Strozzi ; 
Cajetan, ** vir summi in genii nec minoris pietatis" says Bellarmin ; 
Cajetan, " excellentissime CatJiolicus," says Soto; Cajetan, " incom- 
parabilis theologus," says Sextus of Sienna, — this Cajetan, when 
he died in 1535, would in all probability, say the historians of the 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCRYPHA. 



time, have been chosen Pope to succeed Clement VII. But eleven 
years after Cajetan's death, the fifty-three ecclesiastics assembled 
at Trent, issued this decree, " If any one do not receive as holy 
and canonical these books, with all their parts, such as they are in 
the Vulgate version — let him be anathema !" Yet we must sup- 
pose that these declarations so recent and so explicit of the illus- 
trious cardinal would occasion them some embarrassment. " There- 
fore," says Cosin, " Catharin and Canus barked at the dead lion ; 
but neither these two men nor any other person dared write 
against him on this subject during his life- time, when he was on 
the spot to answer them. Catharin could bring against him after 
his death nothing but the uncertain authorities of three popes," of 
whom a satisfactory account is given in Proposition 493. But 
this is not all. 

(k) In 1555, Driedo, a doctor of Louvaine, while Cajetan was 
dying, was employed to write against Luther, and yet he did not 
the less acknowledge in his " Pour books of Holy Scripture and of 
Ecclesiastical Dogmas/' dedicated to the King of Portugal, " That 
the Christian Church, although she reads the apocryphal books 
with pious regard, because of some holy authors of antiquity who 
made use of them ; though she does not reject them entirely, nor 
despise them, nevertheless she has not received them as having 
equal authority with the canonical books. (Ecclesia tamen 
Christiana propter auctoritatem veterum quorumdam sanctorum 
qui leguntur usi fuisse testimonies ex hujusmodi historiis, eadem 
qua ii fide legit et non prorsus rejicit nec contemnit, tametsi non 
pari auctoritate recipiat illos libros cum scripturis canonicis.)" 1 

Let this striking testimony against the council, which followed 
it so closely, be carefully noted. 

(I.) In 1 540, 1546, John Ferus, of the order of the minor friars, 
who died in 1554, a learned man and an able preacher, published, 
a little time after the council was assembled, his work, entitled, 
" Examination of those who are to be ordained," and this book, 
though afterwards inserted in the Index, met with general appro- 
bation during the author's life-time. He never heard of any attack 
upon it. Now, he had said to his disciples, " These are the apo- 
cryphal books — third and fourth of Esdras, Judith, Ecclesiasticus, 
1 Lib. i., d. 4, ad diffic. 3. 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCRYPHA. 



645 



Baruch, and the two books of the Maccabees. All the others are 
called canonical. (Sunt autem hi libri apocryphi : tertius et 
quartus Esdrae, Judith, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch et Maccabaeorum 
libri duo. Omnes alii dicuntur canonici.)" He adds, that " for- 
merly the apocryphal books were not read publicly in the churches, 
but only at home. (Olim vero in ecclesia, apocryphi publice non 
recitabantur ; nec quisquam auctoritate eorum premebatur ; sed 
domi quidem et privatim pro suo cujusque animo fas erat illos 
legere.)" 

492. Thus, then, from this vast " cloud of witnesses " we can 
draw the following conclusions : — 

(1.) That the reformed religion, as well as the Greek Church, in 
the rejection of the Apocrypha, has the continued assent through 
all ages of the universal Church, including even the Latin Church 
till the time of the Council of Trent. 

(2.) That, since the days of the apostles, this unanimity is 
founded on the same recognition of the apostolic dogma relating 
to the canon of the Old Testament. " Proferantur codices 
Judaeorum" said all the fathers, with Augustin as well as with 
Jerome. " Judaei, tanquam capsarii nostri sunt. Studentibus 
nobis codices portant" They incessantly repeat, "The twenty- 
two CANONICAL BOOKS OF THE JEWS." 

(3.) If former ages — which never assimilated the apocryphal 
books entirely to the twenty-two inspired books of the Old Testa- 
ment — sometimes, influenced by the Septuagint, granted them a 
place in the public or private readings of the church, as was also 
permitted to the Acts of the Martyrs, and as even the Anglican 
Church still does on certain days, according to her liturgy, — if even 
it had been customary to bind up these uninspired books with the 
Sacred Volume, at the same time constantly giving notice that 
they were not held to be divine, it must be acknowledged that 
this practice brought forth evil fruits by giving them an ill-defined 
importance to which they had no title, and by lowering in popular 
estimation the idea of Divine inspiration. 

(4.) That the Bible societies have deserved well of all the 
churches in making these uninspired books return to their pro- 
per position — for by their energetic resolutions, and by their 
absolute refusal to lend any aid to ecclesiastical associations, 



646 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCEYPHA. 



which, by mixing the pure and impure together, persisted in 
giving to these human productions a species of canonisation, 
they have been the instruments of Divine Providence for bringing 
them down from their unlawful elevation, and for reinstating the 
pure Word of God in the place to which it belongs. 

(5.) If it is highly detrimental to the adoration due to God 
alone, that the Eoman Pontiffs canonise men and women that they 
may be invoked, it is equally detrimental to God, and to the sub- 
mission due to Him, that the same Pontiffs have presumed to place 
the books of men in the canon of the sacred oracles. 

Section Thied. 
the allegations of the defendees of the deceee. 

493. It will, no doubt, be asked, What do the defenders of the 
decree allege to justify this pernicious novelty ? 

First of all, they produce, 108 years before the Council of Trent, 
their Pope Eugenius IV. and his Council of Florence, (1439,) to 
which they attribute an analogous decree. Secondly, they assert 
that Eugenius IV. received this canon from Pope Gelasius, who 
occupied the see nearly a thousand years before him, (492-496.) 
Thirdly, that Gelasius, in his turn, had received it from Augustin 
and the Council of Carthage, held in the presence of that father 
one hundred years before Gelasius, (397.) And, in the last place, 
fourthly, that the Council of Carthage had itself received it either 
from Pope Innocent, or from Pope Damasus, who ascended the 
pontifical throne only thirty years before the Council was held. 

494. " See, then !" exclaims, on this subject, Bishop Cosin, 
(art. 196 ;) " see all the authorities to which they can pretend in 
the long course of ages that have elapsed since the composition of 
the apocryphal books ! And what are these authorities ? Besides, 
that some are uncertain, and others perverted from their meaning, 
so that none of them was ever taken, during all preceding ages in 
the absolute acceptation to which the partizans of the Council 
wish to extend them, I do not hesitate to say that they are un- 
able to justify their anathema by any of these authorities. For 
though they may meet, after the days of Augustin, with two or 
three writers, who, like him, have enumerated the Scriptures in- 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCRYPHA. 



647 



distinctly, as he has done, they will never be able to find that in 
this nomenclature any of them has declared the ecclesiastical books 
to be equal to the canonical, either as to their nature or their 
authority, nor that Gelasius or even Eugenius (supposing these 
pretended decrees which they offer us under their name, are his- 
torically true) ever pronounced an anathema against whosoever 
should not abandon the ancient canon for the new. And yet, 
every man subject to the Church of Eome is bound to believe in 
relation to the apocryphal books, not only that he is permitted to 
read them in public for the instruction of the Church in life and 
manners, (which the ancient fathers have often said,) but that he 
must, under pain of eternal damnation, hold them in all their 
parts (cum omnibus suis partibus) as possessing an authority 
equal to that of the oracles of God to establish doctrine, and to 
be a foundation of faith, (extra hanc fidem nemo potest esse 
salvus" (Art. 195.) 

495. We take up, in the order of antiquity, these authorities to 
which the defenders of Rome appeal, and, first of all, we say, as to 
Pope Innocent, that there are the strongest reasons for putting his 
pretended epistle to Exuperius 1 in the class of those false decretals 
of which Rome herself has recognised the fraud. The following are 
Cave's reasons for rejecting it : — " I hold," he says, " this pretended 
decree to be false. First, On account of its barbarous style. 
Secondly, For its absurd accommodations of Holy Writ. Thirdly, 
For its many errors of doctrine, which yet do not belong to that 
age. Fourthly, For its very gross errors of chronology. Fifthly, 
For certain rites it mentions which were not yet prevalent in the 
Church. Papebroch himself (Catal. Rom. Pont., p. 02) confesses 
that the errors in chronology of a great number of the epistles 
attributed to this Pope, oblige him to call them in question." 2 

496. But we shall be more fully convinced of the fraud if we 
listen to Cosin, because he lays open its origin. 

"Never," he says, "was anything said about this pretended 
epistle of Innocent in any ecclesiastical author till 300 years after 

1 Councils by Binius, torn, i., sect. vii. This is the 3rd Epistle; but the twenty- 
three first are held by the Magdeburg Centuriators, Osiander, Tilleinont, and many 
others, to be forgeries. 

2 See Dupin, Hist. Eccl., iii., 67. Fabricius, Bibl. Mediae et Infnnae Latinit., 
vol. iv., lib. x., p. 56. 1734-1756. 



648 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCRYPHA. 



him. Whence it was taken to be inserted afterwards in the col- 
lection of the councils among the decretal epistles of the Popes 
in the Eoman code, which itself had for a long time been used in 
the Church before this letter was slipt in.'* 1 

For more than a hundred years nothing was said about any 
epistle of Innocent in the Eoman code ; 2 and it was only 200 
years after the arrival of Dionysius Exiguus at Eome, (that is to 
say, 300 years after Innocent,) that at last an abridgment of the 
canons (Breviarium Oanonum) was made in 698, and that Cres- 
conius added to the code of Dionysius Exiguus the Decretal 
Epistles of six Popes, among others, those of Innocent and 
Gelasius. And, what is still more remarkable, even then the 
pretended Third Epistle of Innocent to Exuperius contained 
nothing of what has been seen in it later as to the canon of the 
Scriptures ! 

It was, then, 100 years after Cresconius, or 400 years after 
Innocent, that Isidore the merchant (in the year 800) made a 
collection of Decretal Epistles, such as no honest man would 
have been disposed at first to make use of, till at last Popes Leo 
IV. (in 850) and Nicholas I, (in 860,) seeing the great advantages 
they could gain from them, published them as a law. 

497. What will prove still further that this decree is a fraud, 
is, that the Council of Carthage, uncertain about its own resolu- 
tions, decided to consult the bishops beyond sea, and among 
others, Pope Boniface. But he occupied the see only sixteen 
years after Innocent. Can any one believe that the council would 
thus have consulted him had there been in existence a decree of 
Innocent only fourteen years before % 

We believe that we need not stop at the decree that has been 
attributed sometimes to Pope Damasus, because it is fully ad- 
mitted that the decretals anterior to Pope Sericius must be classed 
among the False Decretals, but we will say a few words about 
that attributed to Gelasius. 3 

1 Codex Canonum and Decretorum Romanse Ecclesise. Edit. Mentz, 1525. 

2 Ferrand at the same time made an abridgment, (Breviatio Canonum,) where he 
cites, as to the collection of the Holy Scriptures, only the decrees of Laodicea and 
Carthage. 

3 This decree is found in some manuscripts with some illegal alterations attri- 
buted to Pope Hormisdas. — Alzog. Hist. Eccl., § 130. 



APPENDIX OX THE APOCRYPHA. 



649 



498. In the Code of the Canon of the Ancient Roman Church, 
(Mentz, ]525, and Paris, 1609,) we have a single decree of Pope 
Gelasius, divided into twenty-eight sections ; though subsequently, 
in the Volumes of the Councils, a great number have been added, 
and, among others, one which had been made at Rome in a council 
of seventy bishops, 1 on the distinction between the sacred and 
authentic books, and the Apocrypha. 

But of this pretended decree there is no mention whatever in 
history before the days of the too famous Isidore the merchant, that 
is to say, before the time when Pope Gelasius had been for 300 
years laid in his tomb. And it was from this forger of decretals 
that Burckhard, first of all, in 1014, then Yves in 1117, then at 
last Gratian in 1180, received the decree of Gelasius, and that of his 
pretended Roman council held in 494. And yet they received it 
with so many discrepancies, the "Roman Emendators" themselves, 
in their Notes on the Canon of Gratian, knew not what text to 
adopt, some of the copies not naming the book of Judith, nor the 
second book of Maccabees ; some mentioning five books of Solo- 
mon, and some only two, and some three ; others three books of 
Chronicles, and others only one. 

" However, that may be, I hold this pretended decretal to be 
false/' says the learned Dr Cave, 2 " for the following reasons : — 
1. Because the most ancient manuscripts do not attribute it to 
any certain author, and Baluze himself confesses that the real 
author is not known ; 2. Because it refers to books which had 
not seen the light in 494 ; 3. Because it contains absurdities and 
contradictions which we know not how to attribute either to 
Gelasius or to the council ; 4. Because it condemns the Ajiostolic 
Canons which Dionysius Exiguus, an admirer of Gelasius, and 
almost his contemporary, translated into Latin, and caused to be 
received by the Church of Rome ; 5. Because it professes to 
follow St Jerome in everything, and we are well acquainted with 
the opinions of this father ; 6. Because no person ever mentioned 
it before the year 840 ; 7. Lastly, because Dionysius Exiguus, who 

1 In Binius, torn. iii. : — " Concil. Romanum quo a 70 Episcopis, libri sacri et 
authentici ab Apocryphis sunt discreti, sub Gelasio., an. Dom., 494." 

2 Hist. Litter., torn, i., p. 463. See also Bishop Fearson, (Vindicise Ignatianoo, 
i., cap. 4, p. 45-47.) 



650 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCRYPHA. 



collected (so short a time after the death of Gelasius) these decretals 
of the Eoman Pontiffs, has, nevertheless, made no mention of this." 

To proceed, then, we come to the first testimony which seems 
to have any historical weight, that of the Council of Carthage, said 
to have been held in 397, and at which we are assured that 
Augustin himself was present. 

499. As to the Council of Carthage held in the days of Augus- 
tin, and which is said to have joined the Apocrypha to the twenty- 
two sacred books of the Jews, we have already spoken at length 
in the first part of this work. 

We quote the Latin words attributed to the Council : — " Canon 
XL VII. — Item placuit, ut praeter Scripturas canonicas nihil in 
Ecclesia legatur sub nomine Divinarum Scripturarum. Sunt 

autem canonicce Scripturce, Genesis Salomonis libri 

quinque Tobias, Judith — Maccabaeorum libri duo . . . . 

Hoc etiam fratri et sacerdoti 1 nostro Bonifacio vel aliis earum 
partium episcopis, 2 pro confirmando isto canone innotescat quia 3 
a patribus ista accepimus in ecclesia legenda. — Liceat etiam legi 
Passiones Martyrium, cum anniversarii dies eorum celebrantur." 

But we reply, that this decretal, about which the Eoman doctors 
have made so much noise, 4 is very far from having the name, or 
even the meaning, which they would assign to it ; and for the 
eight following reasons : — 

500. (1.) In the tradition relative to the Council of Carthage, so 
many uncertainties and contradictions prevail, that its testimony 
is very much weakened, and it is impossible not to recognise in 
the account we have received of it more than one pious fraud ; for 
example : — 

(a) The authors of the decretal resolved that this forty-seventh 
canon should be communicated to their brother and colleague 
Boniface ; while, in the forty-eighth, they desire that their brethren, 
Siricius and Simplicius, should be consulted, the one the bishop 

1 Others, as Binius, say, " Consacerdoti nostro." 

2 The oldest manuscript (Binius and Labbe say) reads — " De confirmando isto 
canone transmarina ecclesia consultetur." 

3 In tbe sense of " Innotescat quod," (" qua pro quod," according to the African 
usage.) 

4 Baronius, Annales, 397 and 419. Binius, in notes ad Cone. Carthagin. III. 
Card, du Perron, his reply, chap. 48, in 1622. 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCRYPHA. 



651 



of Kome, and the other of Milan. All the editions of the council 
bear on the inscription that it was held in 397, (Caesario et 
Attico considibus.) Now, between the papacy of Siricius and of 
Boniface there were more than twenty years ; the first having 
ended his only one year after the council was held, and the other 
not having commenced till 418, after three other popes had 
occupied the see between these two. The pretended decretal on 
the Apocrypha, if it was ever passed at the African council, would 
not have been till twenty-one or twenty-five years after the other 
canons with which it is associated, and after the council to which 
it is attributed, — a council, the historians say, composed of forty- 
four bishops, and presided over by Aurelius, bishop of Carthage. 

It follows inevitably that, if this decretal is not a mere fiction, 
it has been placed there at second-hand, much later, by some ecclesi- 
astical compiler who numbered it at his leisure, and for a certain 
purpose. 

(6.) Cardinal Baronius himself, incapable of justifying their 
contradictions, tells us, that the forty-nine canons attributed to 
this council must have been decreed by different councils. 1 

(c.) "Although this council/' says Foye, (Romish Rites, 1851, 
p. 40,) " has no right to the age that is ascribed to it, we know 
that the most ancient notice which has reached us of its decrees 
on ordination (can. 1, 2, 3) is of the seventh century, by Isidore of 
Seville." 

(<£) The Greek report of the Council of Carthage does not 
contain the Maccabees in its catalogue of adopted books, " which 
leads us to think that the Jesuit Labbe completed it in this form 
as he pleased, when compiling his "History of Councils/' 2 

501. (2.) Many suppose that if this decree has been really 
passed, it will be in the twenty-fourth canon of another council, 
which is contained in the Code of the Canons of the African 
Church, and which was held in 419, before the death of Boniface. 
But this explanation resolves no difficulties, and obliterates no con- 
tradictions ; for neither in the Greek Code nor in the African 

1 See Westcott'fl explanation of this confession, in his work on the canon, 
pp. 508-510. 

3 In the Code of the Canons of the African Church by Crcsconius, an African 
bishop of the seventh century, the book of Maccabees is not named when he re 
ports this Canon. See Justel., " Code des Canons de l'Eglise d'Afrique." 



652 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCEYPHA. 



Code, given by Cresconius, do we find the same books mentioned 
as in the Eoman edition. There is no mention either of the Mac- 
cabees or of Barium. And, on the other hand, as they followed in 
Africa, before the labours of Jerome, a Latin translation of the 
Septnagint, they received the additions made by the Hellenists, 
and, among others, the apocryphal book which the Greeks call the 
first of Esdras, and the Latins the third. Bejected by the latter, 
it was recommended by the Council of Carthage, (according to the 
African Code,) to be read in the assemblies of the African Church. 

502. (3.) This decree of Carthage, very far from being able to 
be an authority with the doctors of Borne, has, on their own shew- 
ing, manifestly erred on the question of the Apocrypha, since it 
rejects Baruch, which was adopted by the Council of Trent, and 
attributes five books to Solomon, (Salomonis libri quinque,) — that 
is to say, not only Ecclesiastes, Broverbs, and Canticles, but also 
Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom, composed 700 1 years after the royal 
prophet. 

503. (4.) More than this : Even granting credit to the council 
(whichever it might be) which passed this decree, it is evident 
that its members never had in their thoughts, nor adopted any 
resolution which could concern the universal Church, not even (as 
far as relates to the province of Africa) to form an infallible 
catalogue of the sacred books. On the contrary, distrusting itself, 
fearful of some error, it determined that the resolutions should be 
submitted to the church beyond the sea, (" transmarina ecclesia 
consultetur") and to different bishops of the west, ("vel aliis 
earum partium episcopis") It did not submit them solely to 
the Bishop of Borne ; and even its twenty-sixth canon contains 
this remarkable sentence against the already growing pretensions 
of the Boman see — " That the bishop of the first see be not called 
prince of priests, or sovereign priest, or anything like it ; but sim- 
ply, bishop of the first see." 

504. (5.) Moreover, it is equally evident, that the council in its 
decree intended by no means to designate these books as inspired 
by terming them canonical Scriptures, or Scripturae regidares, 

1 Augustin, in his " City of God," xvii., 20, acknowledges that the language of 
his time was erroneous. " Propter eloquii non nullam similitudinem ut Salomonis 
dicantur obitnuit consuetudo. Non autem esse ipsius non dubitant doctores," 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCEYPHA. 



653 



— (that is to say, serving as a rule for the Christian life.) It 
simply called by this name those books which might be read with 
edification in the public services. "We shall very soon perceive 
that this was the only point which the decree had in view. Its 
very language attests that it was not a decree relating to doctrine, 
but simply a rule of discipline respecting the books to be read in 
the assemblies of the churches, (in ecclesid legenda.) In the 
second place, this will appear more evident from the fact, that 
the council determined that, to the reading of these books might 
be also joined that of the Acts of the Martyrs on the anniversaries 
of their death. Lastly, to convince yourself, you have only to con- 
sider what was constantly the language of Augustin, after this 
council, where it is asserted that he was present. He never once 
appealed in his writings to the decisions of this assembly, as put- 
ting an end to all uncertainty on the subject of the canon. He 
does not even mention it. 

505. (6.) The council in its decree calls these books canonical 
(that is to say, serving as a rule) in the sense in which others 
call them ecclesiastical, in opposition to books forged, and un- 
worthy of confidence. And what proves it, is the thought ex- 
pressed by Augustin when, in his work Be Doctrind Christiana} 
he distinguishes the terms " Divine Scripture " and " Canonical 
Scripture/' as we shall presently shew. 2 

50G. (7.) " Let us not forget that the Council of Carthage was nei- 
ther approved nor even named by the General Council of Chalcedon 
in 451, while that great assembly of 630 bishops formally recognised 
the Council of Laodicea, held for all Asia Minor thirty years before 
that of Carthage, and with greater celebrity. We know that 
Laodicea set forth a catalogue of the Sacred Writings from which 
the apocryphal books were absolutely excluded. Many doctors 
of Rome have vainly endeavoured to establish that the Council of 
Carthage was named in the oecumenical assembly of Chalcedon ; 
but it was never brought forward there, and nothing was done 
but to confirm in a general manner preceding decisions, that is to 

1 Lib. ii., vol. iii., part i., p. 4. Edit. Paris, 1S3G : — " Erit igitur divlnarum 
Scripturarum solertissimua indagator, qui primo totas legcrit .... et si nondum 
intellectu jam tamen lectioue duntaxat eaa quae appcllantur canonicae." 

2 See Prop. 510. 



654 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCEYPHA. 



say, either the first sessions of the council itself, or what was 
called The Universal Code of the Councils, which appellation 
referred to nine preceding councils, of which Carthage never made 
a part. 

507. (8.) Lastly, what shews more strongly still in what sense 
the resolutions passsed by the Council of Carthage were under- 
stood, is what took place at the end of the seventh century at the 
sixth General Council held at Constantinople 681, and in Trullo 
692, and composed of 227 bishops. At the same time that it 
solemnly confirmed, in its second canon, the Council of Laodicea, 
as well as the canonical epistles of St Athanasius, Gregory of 
Nazianzus, and of Amphilochius, which all exclude the apocry- 
phal books from the Holy Scriptures, it likewise recognises the 
Council of Carthage. It necessarily follows that nothing was seen 
in the decree of Carthage relating to books for reading in the 
church, but a measure of discipline consistent with the decree 
passed at Laodicea. 

508. But there remains Augustin,! the only author of weight, 
whom, with any appearance of reason, the defenders of Eome can 
allege in the fifteen first centuries to justify their decree. We 
shall very soon perceive that if this great doctor sometimes held 
language which betrayed lax and ill-defined notions respecting 
the true basis of the canon — if once or twice he has seemed to 
give the apocryphal books a name and a place to which they have 
no right — at the same time, the whole tenor of his writings testi- 
fies strongly that he never ceased to place an essential difference 
between these books and the oracles of God, as between their 
authors and the true prophets, (proprie prophetas) 2 His language 
— while indicating, in respect of certain books, the uncertainty in 
which for a time he was left by the Septuagint, of which exclusive 
use was made in Africa, instead of the original Hebrew, 3 and in 
which the greater part of the apocryphal books were found bound 

1 See the tesimonies of this father on this subject. Kirchhofer, Geschichte 
der Canons; Wordsworth on the Canon, appendix, 1848, pp. 34, 81; Cosin, No. 
87, &c. 

2 De Doctrina Christiana, lib. ii., art. xii. 

3 See the dissertation of Jerome and of Augustin in the 78th and 93rd epistle 
of the latter, and also the "City of God," xviii., 43. 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCRYPHA. 



655 



up with the Holy Scriptures of God, 1 — his language, we say, is 
very far removed from ever authorising that of the Council of 
Trent. 

For (a.) in the seventeenth book of his City of God he declares of 
the Apocrypha, and particularly of the books of Wisdom and Eccle- 
siasticus, that it is chiefly in the West that they are received as 
having authority, ("eas tamen in auctoritatem maxime occidentalis 
recepit Ecclesia") He would never speak thus of the true oracles 
of God. 

(6.) He adds, that we cannot venture to employ with the same 
confidence against opponents the books which, like these two, are 
not found in the canon of the Jews, (" Sed adversus contradictories 
non tantd firmitate proferuntur quae scripta non sunt in canone 
Judaeorum") 

(c.) He acknowledges that the Jews had no prophets beyond the 
time of the explusion of Tarquin, that is to say, the five hundred 
and ninth year before Jesus Christ. 2 

In the twenty-fourth chapter of the same book, he says, " During 
all the time that elapsed since their return from Babylon, (after 
Haggai, Malachi, and Zechariah, who prophesied at that time,) the 
Jews had no prophets till the coming of our Lord, excepting 
Zecharias, the father of John the Baptist, Elisabeth, Anna, and 
the aged Simeon." 

It is sufficiently evident that a writer who holds this language 
would judge that books written at a period when there was no 
more prophets in Israel could not belong to the canon of the 
Divine Scriptures, nor possess the authority of inspired books. 

(d.) See what he says in his City of God, book xviii., ch. 38. 
He declares (on Ps. lvi.) that all the scriptures which have pro- 
phesied of Jesus Christ are in the hands of the Jews, and that 
the Jews professed all these same scriptures. (" Quia omnes ipsae 
litterae quibus Christus prophetatus est apud Judaeos sunt omnes 
ipsas litter as habent Judaei.") 

(e.) He takes care to say of the book of Maccabees that it is 

1 Theodotian, who, it appears, first collected these books, and had them ap- 
pended to the Scriptures in one volume. 

2 "Supputatio temporum, restituto Templo, non in Scripturis Sanctis quae 
canonicae appellantur, sed in aliis invenitur, in cpuibus aunt et Maccab. libri." 
— Civ. Dei., xviii., 36. 



656 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCEYPHA. 



not found in the Holy Scriptures which are called canonical — • 
" That the Jews do not receive it, but that the Church can receive 
it not uselessly, provided it be read and heard with sobriety." 1 
Who would dare to speak thus of a book truly divine ? 

(/) He says likewise of the book of Judith that it is not re- 
ceived by the Jews into the canon of the Scriptures — "(Quae con- 
scripta sunt in libro Judith sane in canonem Scripturarum 
Judaei non recepisse decantur)" 2 And in chap. 38 he gives the 
reason this people had for not receiving such books — "Non 
inveniuntur in canone quern populus Dei recepit." 3 

(g.) He observes many times, that though prophets were nume- 
rous among the Israelites, only the writings of a few of them have 
been left to us as canonical. 4 

(h.) He often lays it down as a principle that the Jews have 
been divinely chosen to receive the deposit of the oracles of God, 
and that this people have always known how to recognise the true 
authors of the Holy Scriptures, and to distinguish them from 
others, that they have always been unanimous on this subject, 
never having had a difference of opinion on any book, &c. ( <c Sed 
Concordes inter se atque in mdlo dissentientes sacrarum litterarum 
veraces ab eis cognoscebantur et tenebantur auctores") (Chap. 44 
of the same book.) 

(i.) He often repeats that the Jews are admirably constituted by 
God to be, in reference to the very Scriptures that condemn them, 
our book-porters, our librarians, our archive-keepers — " capsarii 
nostri/' (on Ps. xl. ;) " librarii nostri" (on Ps. lvi. ;) " scriniraria 
nostra." 

(k.) He goes further, and more than once repeats that the Jews 
have themselves all the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament, 
and that " in the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, we have all 
the canonical authorities of the holy books," (Ps. xl. and lvi.) 

1 " Sed recepta est ab Ecclesia non enubiliter, si sobrie legatur vel audiatur." — 
Contra Epist. Gaudent., lib. ii., 23. 2 City of God, xviii. 29. 

3 " Cujus rei fateor, causa me latet — nisi quod ego existimo etiam ipsos quibus 
ea quae in auctoritate religionis, esse deberent, Sanctus ubique Spiritus revelebat, 
alia sicut homines historica diligentia, alia sicut prophetas inspiratione divina 
scribere potuisse ilia ad ubertatein cognitionis haec ad religionis auctoritatem 
pertinebant,^ in qua auctoritate custoditur Canon." 

4 " Qui cum multi f uerent paucorum et apud Judaeos et apud nos canonica 
Bcripia retinentur." — City of God, xviii., 26. 



APPENDIX OX THE APOCKYPHA. 



657 



And in the sixteenth chapter On the Unity of the Churchy " Let 
them shew," he says, " their church in the Law, the Prophets, and 
the Psalms, — that is to say, in all the canonical authorities of the 
Scriptures. (Demonstrent ecclesiam suam in praescripto Leges, 
in Peophetaeum praedictis, PsALMORUM cantibus ; hoc est in 
omnibus canonicis librorum auctoritatibus.)" 

509. It will certainly be granted, that such language on the 
part of that one of all the fathers who, according to the doctors of 
Rome, speaks most favourably of the Apocrypha, is very far from 
authorising the decree of the Council of Trent, which makes no 
difference whatever in authority, importance, or divinity, between 
these books and the oracles of God intrusted to the Jewish people, 
and which, on the other hand, pronounces a horrible anathema 
against " every person who will not receive them all entire, with 
all their parts, as sacred and canonical." 1 

Let us not be misunderstood. If we dwell at length on these 
opinions of Augustin, it is only that we may leave no refuge to the 
defender of that pernicious decree, for, after all, they do not affect 
our argument on the canon. That father was evidently not well 
settled on the question ; but yet he was infinitely far from speak- 
in g as the doctors of the council have done eleven centuries after 
him. But had he gone much farther in the direction of the errors 
which a long time after were reduced to a formula at Trent, and 
caused the Latins to fall into this unfortunate schism, what, after 
all, would that signify to us ? 

Neither the one nor the other belong to Israel ; and to Israel 
alone the oracles of the Old Testament have been intrusted. 
" And truly," (a distinguished man lately wrote to us on this sub- 
ject,) 2 " I can say that I could scarcely wish that these ancient errors 
on the Apocrypha in the Latin Church had not been committed. 
This seemed necessary to establish that the Jewish canon is for us 
everything or nothing." 

510. We think it our duty to quote here that of all the passages 
of Aiunistm which can be regarded as the most favourable to the 

1 The bull of Pius IV., given at the end of the council, as a summary of its 
faith, expressly says, " Extra hanc fidem nemo potest esse salvas." 

2 It gratifies the author to mention that, before sending these sheets to prcs, 
he had the happiness to receive the corrections and opinions of three most value 1 
friends, the Pastor Burnier, and the Professors Merle and Binder. 

2 T 



658 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCRYPHA. 



errors of the council, and which the Eoman doctors most frequently 
adduce. It is in Book II., ch. viii. of his Christian Doctrine, (vol. 
iii., part i., p. 47, edit. Paris, 1836.) 

"Art. XII. Let a man who is attached to the study of the 
Divine Scriptures begin with reading all, and with knowing them 
as a whole, if not by understanding, yet by reading them. I speak 
only of those which are called canonical. 1 As for the canonical, 
let him follow the course I am going to mark out. Let him pre- 
fer (praeponat) those which are recognised by the catholic churches 
to those which some do not receive ; and among those which are 
not received by all, let him prefer which the greater number and 
the most respectable acknowledge, (plures gravioresque,) to those 
which have in their favour only a very few churches, and of little 
authority, (pauciores, minoresque auctoritatis.) 

" Art. XIII. Now the entire canon of the Scriptures," he adds, 
"in reference to which we offer these remarks, is composed of the 
following books : — (His libris continetur,) The five books of 
Moses, Joshua, Judges, Kuth, the four books of Kings, the two of 
Chronicles. There are others of a different class, such as Job, 
Tobit, Esther, J udith, two of the Maccabees, and two of Esdras ; 
then the Prophets, among which are the Psalms, three books of 
Solomon, (Proverbs, Canticles, Ecclesiastes ;) for those two books 
named Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus are said to be Solomons, 
though they may be by Sirach? and yet they have deserved to 
receive authority, and to be counted among the prophetic writings. 
The others are the books of men properly called prophets ; these 
are the twelve prophets, which are only reckoned for one ; and, 
lastly, the four great prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, and 
Ezekiel. In these forty-four books, the authority of the Old 
Testament is included. (His quadraginta quatuor libris Testa- 
menti Veteris terminatur auctoritas)" 

511. We see, therefore, that even in this passage, where he is 
more favourable to the Apocrypha than in his other writings, 
Augustin makes a difference between what he calls divine writings 
and the books canonical. He distinguishes his whole catalogue 

1 Observe that he distinguishes between the divine Scriptures and the canonical 
Scriptures. 

2 Augustin (Retract., ii., 4) declares that the author of Ecclesiasticus is uncertain. 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCRYPHA. 



659 



into different categories, according to which certain books were 
received by all the churches, or by some only ; and, lastly, he re- 
commends that all these precautions should be taken in relation to 
the entire canon by every able investigator (solertissimus inda- 
gator) of the Divine Scriptures. (Totus autem canon Scrip- 
tararum in quo istam considerationem versandam dicimus.)" 

512. Let us here recall the judicious reflections on this father 
by Cardinal Cajetan, who died (as we have said) so short a time 
before the opening of the council. At the end of his commentary 
on Esther, after having called to mind that all our apocryphal 
books are excluded from the canon of Jerome, he adds, " Do not 
allow yourselves to be troubled by the novelty (?ie turberis novitie) 
if you find somewhere these books numbered with the canonical, 
for everything which councils or doctors have been able to say 
upon them must be brought under Jerome's file, (ad Hieronymi 
limam reducenda sunt tarn verba conciliorum quam doctorum.) 
According to Jerome, these books are not canonical, that is, not 
proper to serve as a ride for matters of faith, (hoc est, regulares 
ad firmandum ea quce sunt fidei,) but only to eclify the faithful, 
and authorised for this purpose to be in the canon of the Bible, 
(utpote in canone Bibliae ad hoc recepti et auctorati) By 
means of this distinction you will be able to discriminate both 
the words of Augustin in his work on Christian Doctrine, and 
what is written in the provincial councils of Florence, Carthage, 
and Laodicea," &c. 

513. The error of Augustin and his contemporaries in Africa 
before the light of Jerome's labours had extended so far, consisted 
solely in too easily joining to the Old Testament books more or 
less doubtful, even in their own judgment. While, on the con- 
trary, the error of the Council of Trent consisted in assimilating 
entirely these doubtful books to the sacred oracles — in declaring 
them infallibly divine — in taking no account of the testimony of 
the Jews, to whom alone these holy oracles had been intrusted ; 
and, still further, in solemnly anathematising whoever feared to 
be guilty of the same profanation. So atrocious an act was never 
perpetrated ! 

514. Lastly, to all these testimonies of Innocent, Gclasius, 
Augustin, and the Council of Carthage alleged by the defenders 



660 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCKYPHA. 



of the Council of Trent, we can reply, by a very simple fact, to 
which we have already alluded. What proves that during eleven 
or twelve hundred years, I mean from Augustin to the Council 
of Trent, there was a general agreement throughout the West 
with Jerome and with us, is, that in this long space of time, a 
Bible was never seen which bore on its front either the pretended 
Epistle of Innocent, or the pretended decretal of Gelasius, or the 
pretended decretal of Florence, or the Catalogue of Carthage ; while 
in all the Bibles, manuscript or printed, the " Prologus Galeatus " 
of Jerome was placed on the first page by the constant and unani- 
mous consent of the Latin Church, in order to attest that it main- 
tained with him the distinction between the apocryphal or ecclesi- 
astical books, and the canonical. 

515. There remains nothing more to examine here, in reply to 
the defenders of the Apocrypha, excepting a pretended decree of a 
council said to be universal, held at Florence in 1439, during the 
twenty-fourth and last schism of the Eoman Church. Between 
the decree attributed to the Council of Carthage, and the too 
famous decree of Trent, there were 1149 years, and yet, says 
Cosin, the only council that the Jesuits, in this long interval 
have attempted to allege, is that of Florence, which the Council 
of Bale, then assembled, declared to be " only a schismatic 
synagogue." 

They cite, as issued by this council, a catalogue of the Scrip- 
tures perfectly similar to that of the Council of Carthage. But it 
is easy to demonstrate, and this Cosin 1 has done, that this is only 
a very late forged decree, of which we owe the first publication to 
Caranza, 2 who died 137 years after the Council of Florence, at 
which not a single word was said of the canon. 

516. To ascertain the fraud, it will be sufficient to hear the 

1 Among the Acts of the Council there is an instruction to the Armenians, 
dated the 10th of the calends of December, that is to say, five months after the 
Armenians had quitted Florence. But even in this instruction, says Cosin, accord- 
ing to all the great collections of the Councils, (Crabb, Surius, Nicolinus, and 
Binius,) there is not a word about the canon. Not more than 100 years after 
Caranza published an Abridgment of the Councils, and in that the instruction 
appeared with three new articles, where a catalogue similar to that of Carthage 
was inserted. (See Keerl, De Apocryphis, p. 150.) 

2 Dominican, confessor to Queen Mary, and Archbishop of Toledo. 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCEYPELA. 



6G1 



language of men who were either actors at the Council of 
Florence or contemporaries. 

Antoninus, for example, took a part in it. He was afterwards 
created archbishop of that city, and was canonised at Eome under 
Adrian VI. Now, Antoninus declares, in his Summary of His- 
tory,^ that Ecclesiasticus is not authentic so as to serve for 
proof in matters of faith — that the Hebrews reckon in all only 
twenty-two authentic books — that they call the books of Wisdom, 
Ecclesiasticus, Tobit, Judith, and the Maccabees, apocryphal; but 
that the Church, notwithstanding, receives the apocryphal books 
as true, useful, and moral, though, for controversy relative to the 
faith, they are not to be urged as argument, (" et si in contentions 
eorum quae suntfidei, non urgentia ad arguendum") And in his 
Summary of Theology he produces, to support his opinion, Jerome, 
Thomas Aquinas, and Nicholas de Lyra, and concludes that the 
Apocrypha may have the same authority as the opinions of the 
holy doctors, which are approved by the Church. (" Unde forte 
habent auctoritatem talem qualem habent dicta S. Doctorum 
approbata ab Ecclesid!') 

517. We may cite again in the same period the celebrated Tos- 
tatus, bishop of Alcala, the most learned man of his age, (stupor 
mundi, as he was called,) who died only fifteen years after the 
Council of Florence. In his Commentaries die frequently excludes 
the six apocryphal books from the number of the canonical books 
proper to prove the faith, and declares that the Church, though it 
retains them, does not absolutely enjoin that they should be read 
or accepted, and does not condemn persons who do not receive 
them as disobedient or infidels. (" Licet ab Ecclesid teneantur, in 
canone tamen non ponuntur quia non adhibet illis ecclesia heme 
fidem ; nec jubet illos regulariter legi aut recipi, et non recipientes 
non judicat inobedientes aut infideles.")^ 

518. Lastly, the same Pope Eugenius to whom this false decree 
of Florence has been attributed said of Dionysius the Carthusian, 
another of his contemporaries, equally decided against the apoc- 
ryphal books, " Laetetur mater Ecclesia quae talem liabet fdium." 
Now, this son of the Church, who was to give so much joy to his 

1 Summa Hist., part i., tit. iii., cap. iv. and cap. vi. sect. xii. 

2 Traef. in Matt. ix. 1. 



662 



APPENDIX ON THE APOCEYPHA. 



mother, Dionysius the Carthusian, said of the apocryphal books, 
" That they are no part of the canon ; and that, if the Church 
causes them to be read, it is not to confirm doctrines, but to form 
manners. (Non ad confirmationem dogmatum ; sed ad morum 
informationem."y " The book of Maccabees," he also said, " is 
not in the canon, although it is received by the Church as a true 
book. (Tamen ah Ecclesia tanquam verus receptus est)" 2 

519. It is, then, well established that when the Church of Rome, 
on the 13th of April 1546, in its general council of fifty persons, 
under the influence of Catharin and his faction, hastened to draw 
up a new additional canon of the Holy Scriptures, and so join to it 
the body of traditions, as not less infallible than the oracles of the 
living God, it committed this twofold evil, in spite of the testimony 
rendered by the universal Church in all ages, and made this 
canon, by its own avowal, for the purpose of establishing the 
dogmas which the famous bull of Pius IV. 3 was going to add to the 
ancient profession of faith, touching the sovereignty of the Church 
of Rome, and touching purgatory, the seven sacraments, transub- 
stantiation, the withholding the cup, the invocation of saints, relics, 
images, and indulgences. " Let all persons, therefore, understand," 
said the council, " in what order, and in what way this synod is 
about to proceed, after laying the foundation of the confession of 
faith ; and also what testimonies, and what defences, it will use 
for confirming doctrines and correcting manners in the Church." 4 

1 Prol. in Tobiam. 2 Cap. i. 

3 Super forma Sacramenti Professionis fidei. (Sub finem Concil. Trid.) 

4 " Omnes itaque intelligent quo ordine et via ipsa synodus post factum fidei 
eonfessiones fundamentum sit progressura, et quitms potissimum testimoniis et 
praesidiis in confirmandis dogmatibus et instaurandis in Ecclesia moribus, sit 
usura." 



THE END. 



INDEX. 



Aben Ezra, 433. 

Adler, 21, 23. 

Agathon, 582. 

Agobard, 639. 

Alcuin, 466, 639. 

Alexander of Alexandria, 374. 

Alexander V., Pope, 512. 

Alexandria, Chronicle of, 349. 

Alogi, Sect of the, 286, 298. 

Ambrose, 287, 304, 321, 349, 393. 

Amphilochius, Catalogue of, 45, 52, 67, 
70, 95, 313, 336, 345, 349, 361, 637. 

Anagnosis, 123-135, 400-404. 

Anastasius, 638. 

Andreas, 52, 293, 306. 

Antioch, Council of, 313. 

Antoninus, 638, 661. 

Apollonius, 286, 297. 

Arethas, 288. 

Arnobius, 120, 286, 303. 

Asterius Urbanus, 139, 177. 

Athanasius, 9, 40, 45, 54-57, 88, 90, 97, 
286, 305, 312, 327, 336, 337, 344, 349, 
361, 363, 374, 375, 393, 399, 441, 638. 

Atbenagoras, 177, 367; 

Augustin, 54, 64, 81, 89, 96, 287, 304, 
308, 321, 322, 323, 336, 349, 361, 374, 
458, 470, 479, 493, 510, 550, 571, 007, 
638, 645, 646, 652, 653, 654-660. 

Augusti, 507. 

Bala, 608. 
Balsamon, 638. 

Barnabas, Epistle of, 241, 367, 552. 
Baronius, 44, 75, 322, 534, 535, 651. 



Basnage, 87, 472, 541. 

Basil, 45, 286, 305, 313, 327, 637. 

Basilides, 237, 238. 

Baur, 500, 501, 502. 

Bede, 639. 

Bellarmine, 44, 466, 611, 513, 535, 641. 
Bengel, 555. 
Bentley, 555. 

Berger de Xivray, 24, 229. 
Bertholdt, 498, 502, 507. 
Beza, 324. 
Biedermann, 134. 
Bigot, Emeric, 540. 
Binder, Professor, 057. 
Bingham, 131, 223. 
Binius, 44, 81, 647, 649, 650. 
Blackmore, 476. 
Bleek, 493. 
Bonnet, 243, 353. 
Bossuet, 562. 
Bowring, 464. 
Braun, 328. 
Bretschneidcr, 501. 
Breviary, 528, 531, 536-538. 
Bruce, 387. 

Bulls, Papal, 514, 517, 519, 521, 525. 
Bunscn, 121, 139, 186, 189, 239, 256, 301, 

319, 569. 
Burgh, 288. 
Bumier, 667. 
Buxtorf, 471. 

Caids, 112, 286, 298, 320, 373, 507. 
Cajetan, 44, 639, 643, 659. 
Calmet, 385, 389, 390, 433. 



664 



INDEX. 



Calvin, 243, 305, 324, 325, 356, 358, 363, 

416, 420, 435, 437, 452. 
Calovius, 345. 
Caranza, 660. 
Carpociates, 238. 
Carpsovius, 328. 

Carthage, Council of, 71, 79-81, 90, 306, 
307, 321, 336, 361, 374, 393, 490, 638, 
646, 648, 650-654. 

Casalis, 613. 

Cassiodorus, 89, 367, 466, 638. 
Catechism of the Greek Church, 399, 

476, 477. 
Catharin, 44, 75, 630, 644, 662. 
Cave, Dr W., 27, 65, 68, 223, 230, 235, 

237, 245, 248, 301, 631, 647, 649. 
Celsus, 211-218. 
Cerinthus, 286, 298. 

Chrysostom, 112, 212, 254, 304, 306, 313, 
327, 349, 393, 540, 638. 

Clement of Alexandria, 9, 103, 148-153, 
157-162, 235, 238, 259, 286, 295, 297, 
315, 317, 324, 328, 344, 366, 373, 381, 
386, 391, 400, 405, 552, 553, 638. 

Clement of Eome, 240, 254-277, 310, 
317, 319, 324, 327, 343, 367, 390, 402, 

551, 563, 566. 
Clichtoveus, 639, 641. 
Cludius, 501, 502, 503. 

Code of the Canons, 40, 68, 74, 75, 76, 
651. 

Confessions of Faith, 416, 604-607. 
Constance, Council of, 512. 
Constantinople, Council of, 40, 490, 
654. 

Cosin, Bishop, 68, 69, 74, 75, 81, 388, 

468, 632, 637, 644, 646, 647, 660. 
Councils, 519, 650, 654, 660. 
Credner, 69, 134, 186, 204, 499, 501, 502, 

503, 507. 
Cresconius, 648, 652. 
Crespin, his History of the Martyrs, 

597-603. 
Cureton, 21, 255, 292, 553. 
Cyprian, 63, 131, 286, 302, 320, 365, 393, 

539. 

Cyril, Catalogue of, 48, 49, 88, 96, 97, 

286, 293, 305, 361. 
Cyril Lucar, 260, 324, 403. 
Cyril of Jerusalem, 88, 259, 286, 293, 

305, 311, 327, 336, 337, 374, 393, 441, 

552, 638. 



Damascenus, John, 441, 637. 
Damasus, Pope, 67, 69, 646. 
Dahl, 503. 

Decretals, 69, 527-530, 648. 

Delarue, Editor of Origen's Works, 27. 

Des Marets, 637. 

Didymus of Alexandria, 361, 386, 393. 

Diesterdick, 503. 

Dietlein, 354, 367, 507. 

Diodorus of Tarsus, 313. 

Diognetus, Epistle to, 11, 241, 245-247. 

Dionysius of Alexandria, 285, 299, 300, 

313, 324, 337, 374. 
Dionysius the Areopagite, 393. 
Dionysius of Corinth, 139, 177. 
Dionysius the Little, 69, 75. 
Dionysius de Ryckel, 639. 
Dobrowski, 558. 

Donation of Constantine, 531-533. 

Driedo of Louvaine, 639. 

Du Perron, 540, 631. 

Du Pin, 530, 647. 

Du Plessis Mornay, 540. 

Durand, 182. 

Ebionites, 238. 493. 
Ebrard, 507. 

Eichhorn, 393, 497, 501, 502, 507. 
EUiott, 305, 591. 

Ephrem the Syrian, 286, 291, 304, 313, 
327, 361, 379, 393. 

Epiphanius, 54, 58, 59, 96, 110, 229, 230, 
236, 259, 286, 288, 305, 313, 327, 336, 
337, 349, 361, 374, 375, 393, 441, 638. 

Erasmus, 541, 639, 641. 

Estius, 405. 

Eugenius, Pope, 646, 661. 
Eulalius, 324. 

Eusebius, 18, 19, 21, 22, 26, 28, 29, 31- 
41, 43, 88, 94, 96, 97, 109, 112, 121, 
125, 127, 132, 139, 158, 160, 181, 184, 
192, 208, 209, 237, 239, 248, 249, 254, 
258, 285, 287, 293, 294, 295, 297, 298, 
299, 304, 313, 315, 317, 319, 327, 335, 
336, 337, 341, 344, 349, 362, 363, 365, 
367, 372, 373, 376, 392, 393, 402, 403, 
404, 551, 552, 553, 563, 566, 575, 636. 

Ewald, 503. 

Eabricius, 389. 
Fell, 555. 
j Ferus, John, 639, 644. 



INDEX. 



665 



Firinilian, 366. 
Fleury, 527, 529, 530, 532. 
Florence, Council of, 660, 661. 
Foxe the Hartyrologist, 600. 
Fritzsche, 562. 

Gablee, 507. 
Gallandi, 245, 259. 
Garnier, 533. 

Gelasius, Pope, 67, 388, 646, 649. 

Gelpke, 507. 

George of Venice, 641. 

Gerhard, 345. 

Gibbon, 118. 

Gieseler, 248, 528. 

Gnostics, 494. 

Gobat, 486. 

Goode, 173. 

Grabe, 165, 259, 287, 389. 
Grant, 486. 

Gregory of Nazianzus, 45, 50, 52, 70, 96, 
286, 293, 305, 313, 327, 336, 361, 374, 
393, 441, 638. 

Gregory of Nyssa, 313, 327, 349. 

Gretser, 630. 

Griesbach, 555, 557, 558, 577. 
Grotius, 432. 

Guericke, 288, 289, 323, 349, 354, 359, 
361, 367, 373, 497, 498, 502, 507. 

Hahn, 226. 
Haldane, 619. 
Hanlein, 496, 507. 
Havernick, 507. 

Hefele, 139, 241, 243, 245, 250, 258, 260, 

292, 323, 523, 552. 
Hegesippus, 22. 
Hengstenberg, 4:53, 507. 
Heracleon, 235. 
Hertwig, 496, 499, 507. 
Hertz, 186. 

Hilary of Poitiers, 45, 321, 349, 639. 
Hippolytus, 9, 220, 286, 293, 298, 301, 

319, 566, 569. 
Hooght, Van der, 464. 
Horne, 468, 636. 
Hottinger, 470. 
Houbigant, 464. 
Huet, 27, 392. 

Hug, 21, 25, 48, 129, 134, 219, 291, 298, 

323, 341, 552. 
Huther, 502. 



Ignatius, 9, 11, 240, 254-257, 292, 316, 

552. 

Index Expurgatorius, 542-546. 

Innocent, Pope, 67, 68, 69, 646, 647. 

Irenceus, 9, 25, 103, 110, 120, 148, 149, 
163-176, 179, 180, 220, 225, 226, 249, 
286, 287, 289, 293, 296, 316, 319, 323, 
- 344, 366, 373, 391, 400, 551, 553. 

Isidore, 67, 237, 465, 529, 648. 

Jacobson, 260. 

James, Thomas, 466, 533-545. 

Jansenists, 513. 

Januarius, 537. 

John the Martyr, 132. 

Jerome, 10, 22, 44, 45, 54, 60, 61, 62, 96, 
110, 112, 287, 304, 308, 311, 316, 320, 
321, 323, 324, 327, 336, 337, 349, 358, 
361, 374, 375, 393, 403, 435, 441, 465, 
470, 550, 552, 553, 561, 563, 566-569, 
629, 630, 642, 645, 659. 

Josephus, 14, 109, 339, 342, 384, 434, 
441, 447, 462, 463, 469, 470, 564, 
636. 

Julius Africanus, 638. 
Junilius, 638. 
! Justel, 74. 
Justin Martyr, 9, 17, 126, 134, 191-207, 
227, 286, 295, 366, 403, 637. 

Kennicott, 464. 
Kern, 502. 

Kirchhofer, 80, 151, 155, 159, 207, 212, 
213, 226, 228, 239, 284, 291, 341, 347, 
364, 390, 654. 

Kortholt, 466. 

Labbe, 80, 537, 650. 

Lachmann, 555, 557, 559. 

Lactantius, 286, 302, 493, 578. 

La Harpe, 323, 328. 

Lange, 503, 507. 
| Laodicea, Council of, 10, 40, 45, 73-81, 
| 30(3, 307, 313, 327, 336, 361, 374, 393, 
490, 561, 637, 653. 

Lardner, 8, 52, 89, 103, 155, 248, 287, 
288, 299, 305, 343, 367, 383, 390. 

Lawrence, 386, 387, 389. 

Le Chassier, 74. 
I Le Clerc, 87. 
! Lee, 288. 



INDEX. 



666 

Le Fevre d'Etaples, 639, 641. 
Leger, 585. 
Leo, Pope, 648. 
Le Sueur, 43, 579, 583. 
Lightfoot, 124, 433, 471. 
Liguori, 537. 
Lucifer, 393. 

Lilcke, 288, 306, 386, 493, 503. 
Luderwald, 507. 
Lumper, 245. 
Luther, 324, 345, 593, 606. 
Lutteroth, 603. 

Macknight, 328. 
Malon, 631. 
Manuscripts of the Scriptures, 33, 260, 

403, 577, 579. 
Marcion, 223-230. 
Martyr, Peter, 540. 
Masora, 472. 
Massuet, 223. 
Matthaei, 555, 558. 
Mayerhoff, 502, 507. 
Melito, 139, 286, 296, 637. 
Menander, 238. 

Merle d'Aubigne, 523, 581, 588, 657. 
Methodius, 286, 293, 303. 
Meyer, 507. 

Michaelis, J. D., 21, 99, 285, 291, 294, 
' 298, 299, 301, 304, 358, 376, 381, 405, 
497, 557. 
Michaelis, J. H., 464. 
Middleton, Bishop, 290, 436. 
Mill, 555, 558. 
Milner, 576. 
Minutius Felix, 120. 
Missal, 570. 
Mohler, 245. 
Moldenhauer, 636. 
Moses of Chorene, 121. 
Montfaucon, 533. 
Morrison, 594. 

Moses Stuart, 288, 305, 323, 328. 
Muratori, Canon of, 21, 95, 186-190, 296, 

320, 366, 373, 391. 
Mynster, 552. 

Narrative of the Martyrs of Lyons, 
295. 

Neander, 248, 349, 378, 379, 503, 552. 
Neudecker, 499, 502. 



Nice, Council of, 42-46, 361, 368, 490. 
Nicephorus, 638. 
Nott, 186. 

Occam, 640. 

Olshausen, 168, 205, 284, 388, 433, 502, 

507. 
Onesimus, 637. 

Order of the Books of the New Testa- 
ment, 24, 56, 57, 59, 61, 65, 80, 180, 
188, 225, 229, 337, 378. 

Origen, 9, 21, 25-31, 88, 96, 97, 103, 137, 
211, 212, 215, 216, 237, 259, 286, 288, 
302, 313, 317, 327, 336, 344, 349, 363, 
364, 365, 372, 375, 381, 385, 386, 388, 

392, 402, 465, 552, 553, 638. 
Orosius, 125, 288. 

Otto, 134. 

Owen, Dr, 325. 

Owen, Bev. John, 609, 611. 

Pamphilus, 385. 

Pantaenus, 139, 316. 

Papias, 139, 293, 294, 400. 

Pastor (or Shepherd) of Hermas, 241, 

291, 343, 367, 390, 553. 
Paulus, 503, 507. 
Paul de Burgos, 639. 
Perrone, 631. 

Peshito Version of the New Testament, 
21-25, 102, 290, 304, 340, 360, 379, 
398. 

Philaretus, 476, 516, 521. 

Philastrius, 52, 53, 320, 321, 336, 361, 

393, 567, 568, 638. 
Philo, 441, 462, 636. 
Photius, 259, 367. 

Picus de Mirandola, 639, 640. 
Pinkerton, 477. 

Plato, Archbishop of Moscow, 476. 
Pliny, 118. 
Pocock, 379. 

Polycarp, Epistle of, 236, 249-253, 292, 

316, 391, 553. 
Polycrates, 637. 
Posse vin, 535, 544. 
Pott, 507. 
Prideatix, 471. 
Primasius, 288. 
Prochorus, 288. 
Ptolemy, 235, 236. 



INDEX. 



667 



Reformation, 580. 

Reuss, 328, 349, 379, 502, 503, 589. 

Eilliet, 558. 

Rosenrniiller, 464. 

Rossi, 464. 

Routh, 186. 

Rufinus, Catalogue of, 54, 63, 89, 304, 
336, 361, 374, 638. 

Sanxtjen, 291, 304. 
Salniasius, 359. 
Scaliger, 248, 387. 
Schleierniacher. 501, 502. 
Schmidt, 496, 502. 
Sclineckenburger, 501. 
Scholz, 131, 555, 559. 
Schott, 499, 503, 507. 
Schrader, 502. 
Schulz, 502. 

Schwegler, 204, 502, 503, 507. 

Seckendorf, 345. 

Semisck, 204, 242. 

Semler, 497, 501, 502, 503, 507. 

Sennebier, 604. 

Serapion, 404. 

Seymour, 515. 

Sibylline Oracles, 493. 

Simon, Richard, 537. 

Simon the Magician, 238. 

Sinai, Manuscripts from, 577. 

Smyrna, Church at, 248. 

Spanheim, 323, 328. 

Storr, 507. 

Strauss, 137. 

Suetonius, 125. 

Sylvestre de Sacy, 387, 390. 

SynceUus, 387, 389. 

Tacitus, 118. 
Targums, 471 
Tatian, 230-232. 

Tertullian, 9, 17, 102, 104, 112, 126, 132, 
148, 154-157, 184, 204, 225, 229, 233, 
237, 253, 281, 286, 287, 297, 319, 322, 
344, 375, 391, 397, 455, 638. 

Theodoret, 43, 165, 232, 313, 324, 327, 
339, 349. 



Theodoras of Mopsuestia, 112, 313. 
Theophilus of Antioch, 177, 178, 286, 

297, 367, 391. 
Theophylact, 324, 349. 
Thiersch, 25, 38, 84, 105, 122, 130, 134, 

138, 291, 354, 400, 404, 507. 
Tholuck, 315. 
Tilloch, 288. 

Tischendorf, 378, 553, 555, 558, 559, 577. 

Tittmann, 555, 557. 

Titus of Botsra, 313. 

Tostatus, 639, 661. 

Toulouse, Council of, 516, 519. 

Tregelles, Dr, 555, 557, 558. 

Trent, Council of, 512, 514, 515, 517, 

520, 542, 561, 630, 633, 634, 659, 660. 
Tyndal, 585-589. 

Ullmann, 502, 55? 
Usher, 254. 

Valentine, 232-235. 
Valesius, (Henry de Valois,) 31, 294, 362, 
367. 

Yictorinus, 112, 286, 288, 303. 
Yives, Louis, 641. 
Yogel, 501. 
Vulgate, 465, 640. 

Walton, 555. 
Weber, 502. 
Wettstein, 555. 

Westcott, 80, 186, 206, 239, 307, 651. 
Wette, de, 349, 498, 501, 502, 503, 507. 
"Wliately, Archbishop, 124. 
Wickelbaus, 21. 
Wieseler, 1S6, 189. 
Wilkinson, 591. 
Wiseman, 21, 538. 
Winer, 134, 349, 385, 552. 
Wordsworth, Dr, 80, 331, 373, 405, 631, 
654. 

Wotton, 259, 260. 
Xjmenes, 639, 640. 
Yeates, 404. 



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